SKA close to sweep

Gagarin Cup - Western Conference semifinals, day 3

Severstal Cherepovets (5) - SKA St. Petersburg (1) 0-4

The favourites from St. Petersburg had a perfect start into game #3 in Cherepovets when they earned a three-goal lead through Teemu Ramstedt, Mikhail Varnakov and Anton Burdasov already until 12:18. Severstal took a timeout after Burdasov's strike which stopped the heavy bleeding but it didn't turn things around for Severstal. Instead Ivan Nepryayev made it even 4-0 for SKA at 31:07. Despite 32 shots on goal the hosts were not able to get past guest goalie Ilya Ezhov during the rest of the match. After having lost now 4-7, 1-4 and 0-4 tomorrow game #4 might be likely already the last of the season for Severstal.

SKA lead 3-0 in the series

Dynamo Moscow (3) - CSKA Moscow (2) 3-2 OT

Hosts Dynamo began with a lot of pressure and were rewarded when Roman Derlyuk opened the score for them already after 81 seconds who used a rebound after a blue line shot by Konstantin Gorovikov. This early lead didn't give the hosts much confidence though and instead CSKA took over the initiative and turned around the result even before the first intermission through goals by Nikolai Prokhorkin who used a rebound after a wrap-around try by Dmitry Kugryshev to score into the right bottom corner and by Oleg Kvasha who received a pass by Alexander Radulov from behind the guest net in a central position and fired the puck into the right corner from the second post. With the begin of the second period the the game became very one-sided and Dynamo controlled everything. After extactly 43 minutes Janne Jalasvaara sniped a shot from a central position into the right corner for the Dynamo equalizer. Despite huge pressure the home side were not able to avoid overtime but there they had 13-0 shots on goal and won the game through a strike by Konstantin Gorovikov who used a mistake in the guest defense after a face off at 71:29  

Dynamo lead 2-1 in the series

Nadezhda Cup semifinals

Riga also won the third match of the two "Dinamos" when they grabbed a 1-0 win in Minsk. At 34:45 it was Gunars Skvorcovs who scored the lone goal of the match and thus the game winner for the Latvians. After a timeout the team from Belarus pulled out their goalie with more than two minutes left in regulation but  the result didn't change anymore. With 34 saves Mikael Tellqvist not only gained a shutout but he was also the key player for his team's success today. In the end Riga won the series easily with 3-0 which comes very surprising as Minsk missed the playoffs just during the last match of the regular season while Riga was chanceless already weeks before.

In the other Nadezhda Cup match of the day the fans in Khabarovsk saw not only a great hockey game but also a shootout that decided about the winner of the whole series. After goals by Vyacheslav Litovchenko and Topi Jaakola for Amur and Nikita Tryamkin and Fyodor Malykhin for Avtomobilist the final and decisive game #4 went into overtime. There it was Alexei Makeyev who tied the series for Avtomobilist at 2-2 with his strike at 68:27. But this was not yet the end. The following shootout brought only a goal by Nikita Gusev which was enough for home side Amur to make it to the Nadezhda Cup finals where they will face Dinamo Riga from Latvia.

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