KHL Wednesday recap

Both top teams in the Western Conference lost points today but at least league leaders Dynamo Moscow grabbed a win in overtime. Against newcomers Slovan Bratislava the special teams should play an important role during the first period. Milan Bartovic opened the score for the Slovaks in power play at 09:15 before Alexander Ovechkin answered for Dynamo also with the men advantage five minutes later. In an even match the decision had to be found in the shootout. There the first two attempts of both teams were transformed into goals before Richard Gynge won the extra point for Dynamo in the fourth round. For Slovan it was the fourth consecutive game that saw a shootout and they had a 2-2 record in these games. For Dynamo it was the 7th win in the last 8 matches.

SKA St. Petersburg also had to do some extra work today but guests CSKA Moscow had the better ending on their side and ended an five-game winning streak of the hosts. Petr Prucha brought St. Petersburg in front during the first period before lockout star Pavel Datsyuk answered for the team from the capital at 39:05. In a game with very few chances on both sides it was Mikhail Grabovsky, also not an unknown person in NHL, who won the game for CSKA six seconds before the end of the overtime.

Avangard Omsk earned a 4-2 win in the inter-conference top game at home against Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. Mikhail Pashnin and Maxim Trunyov had tied the initial Avangard lead earned by Anssi Salmela and Anton Kuryanov. At 57:56 Alexander Perezhogin scored the game winner for Avangard before he also added an empty netter in the last minute of regulation.  

For Metallurg Magnitogorsk their game against Sibir Novosibirsk ended with a loss despite they had twice a comeback. First Sergei Mozyakin tied the guest lead through Viktor Drugov before Viktor Bobrov and Maxim Krivonozhkin earned a two-goal lead for Sibir until the begin of the second period. Still in the middle period Dmitry Kazionov and again Sergei Mozyakin made it 3-3. Krivonozhkin used his second of the day to win the game for Sibir. With his power play strik Jonas Enlund ended all hopes by the home side at 57:48. For Sibir the three points were very important to keep the distance to the non-playoff spots in the Eastern Conference.

And this first non-playoff spot in the East is owned by Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk which continued their race to catch up with a 4-3 against Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod - it was their third win in a row. Dmitry Altaryov (Yugra) and Mikhail Varnakov (Torpedo) had made it 1-1 after the first 20 minutes before Stanislav Bocharov, Igor Magogin and Vitaly Sitnikov grabbed a three goal lead for Yugra during the middle period. Still the guests didn't give up that early and even came as close as to one with strikes by Dmitry Makarov and Alexander Semin in the third period. Vitaly Koval had left the Torpedo net for some time during the last minute but also with the additional attacker the equalizer couldn't be forced anymore.

Traktor Chelyabinsk earned a 3-1 win against Metallurg Novokuznetsk that leaves the hopes for playoffs for the guests pretty unrealistic with their 13-point deficit. Maxim Karpov and Maxim Yakutsenya had scored for Traktor in the first period while Yury Nazarov was succesful with the equalizer in between. Again Yakutsenya decided the match already at 27:53.

Hosts Barys Astana underlined their playoff ambitions with a shootout win against Atlant Moscow Oblast but almost the Kazakhs threw away a huge advantage. Konstantin Pushkaryov, Brandon Bochenski and Fyodor Polishchuk made it 3-0 within 92 seconds at the end of the first period. Around "half time" Dustin Boyd even added the fourth for the hosts. Just when Atlant looked beaten already they started a come back through Mikhail Glukhov and twice Alexander Shevchenko. This was completed by Viktor Stalberg who saved a point for Atlant with just five seconds left to play in regulation and with guest goalie Anton Khudobin on the bench for an additional attacker. In the third round of the shootout Nigel Dawes at leats earned the extra point back for Barys but it's more a point lost than a point won.

A similar but not as crazy come back could be seen in Yekaterinburg. Local Avtomobilist tied a 0-1 and 1-3 deficit to lose in shootout against Amur Khabarovsk in the duel of the then two worst teams of the league. Mikhail Fisenko, Timofei Shishkanov and Alexander Yunkov had scored for Amur while Rastislav Spirko, Artyom Kryukov and Alexei Simakov answered for Avtomobilist. In the shootout Alexander Yunkov was the only one to score and get the better end for Amur to end a six-game losing streak in which Amur didn't even gain a single point. 

 

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