Malkin shines when Russia beats Latvia

2589 specators came to the Globe Arena to see Latvia play Russia, a game that by many Latvians probably is considered the most important sport event of the year. As usual the Latvian fans made a great work of creating a good atmosphere in the arena even if it was of lot empty seats also today.

And the Latvian fans got a great reward for their work when Miks Indrasis opened the score at 11:32 releasing a from just inside the blueline that didn't look unstoppable. Semen Varlamov got his glove to it, but it bounced in behind him. The 1-0 goal came just shortly after Mikelis Redlihs had miss a great chance for the Latvians so the lead was well earned by a Latvian team

Russia outshot 17-10 in the first period but Latvia felt just as good. At the start of the second period Russia made some changes of their lines and came out much stronger. Evgeny Malkin had a good chance early but finished it wide. Russia continued to dominate but didn't came to many very clear chances and Edgars Masalksis did well to keep his net clean.


Edgars Masalskis made 35 saves.
Photo: Roman Kucera

Masalskis also did a spectacular save jumping into two players to catch a rebound from his own save. He seemed to be a bit hurt after falling to the ice but after a couple of minutes he seemed to have shaken it off.

But eventually the equalizer came for Russia, Ilya Nikulin was a bit lucky when his power play shot bounced off a Latvian defender and left Masalskis with no chance. But luck had nothing to do with it when Malkin made it 2-1 on another power play a few minutes later after some beautiful wall passing who gave Malkin an open net to score on.

Latvian head coach Ted Nolan was pleased with the first period but not with the rest of the game "We played ok in the first period. Second and third period many players didn't play at their best. We have to play at the best of our abilities to beat anyone here". He was clearly dissapointed with some of his players "We need the whole team to compete and they didn't do it today". He also said yes to question if there could be some chances in the lineup for the next game.

In the third period it was Varlamov's time to go down, but also he recovered quickly and shortly after Malkin scored his second goal of the game when he got another open net when picking up a rebound from a shot from Aleksandr Popov. After the goal it seemed like both the Latvian players and fans lost their energy and Popov added a fourth Russian goal halfway through the third.


Kristaps Sotnieks and Denis Kokarev.
Photo: Roman Kucera

But the fans would wake up again when Martins Cipulis put another Latvian goal on the board with a good power play shot. However it only took 1:32 for Russia to bounce back to a three goal lead when Evgeni Kuznetsov scored with a quick shot in the upper corner behind Masalskis.

The Russians won 5-2 and super star Evgeni Malkin was a big part of the win and got the best player of the game award. Unfortunately he only spoke to Russian reporters after the game. His head coach Zinutela Bilyaletdinov said "Of course Malkin a player of top level. He scored some important goals for us, I could talk about him a lot but there is no need for that now". About his teams performance he said "We didn't play so good in the first, we played better in the second and third and scored the necessary goals".

Another of Russia's super star Pavel Datsyuk said "It was a bit hard to play. Big arena (rink size), warm and no fans, why is tickets so expensive?".



   

 

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