East sensations in the KHL

Avangard 4-3 Amur

Avangard rally to beat Amur 4-3 in the last minutes of regulation and took a 2-game lead in the series. At 00:49 of the first Dmitry Lugin won the faceoff and fed up a pass to Alexei Kopeikin who opened the scoring. Like yesterday Avangard used their first power-play chance to score, Roman Cervenka tied the game with a high wrist shot from the faceoff circle. At 07:24 Alexander Osipov sent Karri Ramo to the bench after an accurate blue line shot. Avangard tied again when Alexander Nesterov beat Alexei Murygin in front of the net. In the second Ramo backup Alexei Kuznetsov got the puck to his own net after a move from Dmitry Tarasov. The home team tied the game again when Alexander Perezhogin scored after a pass from Cervenka. The game was decided with 78 seconds left to play in the third when Alexander Popov had a breakaway and after the second attempt won the game for Avangard.

“Today we became hungry to play hockey but to lose a game with 1 minute and 18 seconds to play is sad. Now we will go to Khabarovsk and we have a chance to win,” Amur head coach Hannu Jortikka said to Avangard's official site.

Traktor 2-5 Yugra

The most sensational game happened in Chelyabinsk where Yugra tied the series against the winner of the regular championship. The score was opened when Vitaly Sitnikov made a pass and the puck got into the net after ricochet from Gennady Razin's skate at the end of the first. Traktor easily tied the game when Petri Kontiola dished a pass to Vladimir Antipov who lift the puck to make it 1-1. Vitaly Sitnikov came through 3 players and fed up a pass to Anton Krysanov who scored a shorthanded goal to return Yugra's lead. At the end of the second period Andrei Popov with a sole move tied the game again. A 9 second span early in the third decided the game. First Igor Skorokhodov came to the offensive zone and fired to make it 2-3. Then Linus Videll increased Yugra's lead to 2-goals. In the middle of the period Sergei Demagin closed the game with a high wrist shot. Yugra tied the series and will return to Chelyabinsk for a fifth game at least.

Metallurg Mg 1-4 Barys

Barys snapped their 11 games losing streak in KHL play-offs after beating Metallurg Mg on the road. Metallurg began the game more active and didn’t use a power-play chance and then Lukas Kaspar got the pass from Jiri Novotny to pull Barys ahead. At 21 seconds of the second Daniil Markov fired from the blue line to tie the game in power-play. 4 minutes later Barys used a power-play chance to return the when lead Andrei Gavrilin was first on the rebound after Alexei Litvinenko's shot. Talgat Zhailaulov with a nice wrist shot increased the Kazakh team's lead later in the second. Dustin Boyd with an empty-net goal closed the game at 1-4 for Barys, which will go home with a 1-1 tie in the series.

“The second and third goals of Barys are our mistakes and we will talk with the players who were involved in it about this. The names I won’t say but we talk to them,” Metallurg head coach Fyodor Kanareikin said to their official site

Ak Bars 3–2 OT Salavat Yulaev

Ak Bars from the first minutes began to play more active and interesting than yesterday. At 02:31 Kirill Petrov fired from sharp angle and the puck got to Erik Ersberg net. With 2 minutes to play in the first Petri Vehanen made a terrible mistake. Vitaly Proshkin fired from the red line to score his third goal in two games and tied the current battle. The opening of the period was lucky for the home team - Niko Kapanen returned the lead with a nice shot after getting the pass behind the net from Danis Zaripov. But when the third started Salavat Yulaev tied the game with Oleg Saprykin's goal at 41:10. The game went into overtime where Niko Kapanen needed only 48 seconds to win the faceoff, take the puck and score the game-winning goal.

“We needed to win tonight, it wouldn't have been good to lay back in the series 0-2 and a third goal became an award for courage,” Ak Bars head coach Vladimir Krikunov told Salavat Yulaev's official site.

 

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