Continental Cup: Donbas adds another brick

Asiago wakes up like a groggy boxeur, with the memory of six goals taken some hours ago from Rouen. Not an easy task for coach John Tucker to re-motivate his guys, considering the opponents, favorites Donbas Donetsk.

Just a slight change for coach Kulikov, moving Vitali Donika to the fourth line and Aleksandr Vasiliev to the third and changing goalie with Belorussian Stepan Goryachevskikh in the net. Same line ups for Asiago minus forward John Vigilante, out for all tournament due to a broken thumb. Less than four minutes into the game Donbas opens the scoring with captain Sergei Varlamov, well assisted by Denis Kochetkov. Goalie Anthony Grieco, who was not perfect in the first game, has a lot of work and Donetsk fourth line with Materukhin and Shafarenko is especially active. At 13' Mikhail Donika is hit in the face by a puck during an Asiago power play but fortunately isn’t anything serious for the Donbas' forward.

With three minute to play of the first period Asiago has the first real chance but nobody finalizes on an intelligent pass from Heinrich. In the next power play, right before the end of period, Grieco makes two miracles stopping Gladskikh and Vasiliev but was unable to avoid second goal when a very smart pass by Valeri Dydykin finds the easy deflection by line-mate Evgeny Dubrovin. Period closes with another chance by Kochetkov, the most active player, stopped by Grieco.

At the beginning of the second period Asiago has the great chance with a double power play but Donbas' penalty killing unit works very well conceding just a long distance shot by Marchetti. Sean Bentivoglio wastes a good chance when teams are back in 5vs5 during a fair Italian moment.

Goryacheskikh is very reactive on Henrich' shot but it is impossible for the Belarussian goalie to take a wonderful shot from the angle by David Borrelli at 36:00. Donbas realizes it is dangerous to play with Italian pride and needs only 39 seconds to make it 3-1 by Shafarenko. But the game takes another wave: Asiago wants to leave a good impression in Rouen and Federico Benetti builds the 2-3 goal carrying the puck behind the net and serving a golden puck for Ulmer.

Grieco made a suberb save on a finish by Hult and the Italians, supported also by French fans in a strange alliance, gain confidence, but Donbas has more than one string to his bow: Oleg Shafarenko invents a classy move to pass Grieco and drop off puck in Asiago net for the fourth time.

Asiago isn’t at the same level as Donbas, but today Asiago played with a determination unknown yesterday against Rouen and fans can be proud of their guys, trying to
score the third goal for all of the last period, sometimes putting Donbas against the ropes. The Ukrainians can thank their goalie and a good defense that the score remains 4-2 until 54th minute when Sergei Varlamov finalizes a power play, again penalty situations was a problem for Asiago. With a solo play at 58:42 Sergei Piskunov seals final score 6-2 to Donbas.

All according to forecast, Donbas earns other three points, but Asiago played a good game. The game MVPs was Layne Ulmer and Sergei Piskunov. Italian coach John Tucker admits: 'Yesterday was horrible, nothing works, we took 11 power play, today our second and third period was great, I wanna congratulate my players. Today we are proud to are representing Asiago. We come from a 6.500 habitants town, with 11 players in our roster born in Asiago, obviously we can't be favourite here, but our small reality is today between the top four teams in Europe." Tucker clarifies also goalie question: 'Jeff Lerg is our starting goalie, but he isn't at 100% after an injury, he tried to play in Renon for domestic league a week ago but he still felt pain. Anthony Grieco is a 22 kid coming from Canadian university hockey, obvious he hasn't experience at this level but in my opinion he didn't play bad'

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