Geneve Servette win thriller, win Spengler Cup
31 Dec 2013 | Alan Ilijic
Geneve Servette skated off to a win and remained unbeaten in today's Gold Medal Game of the 2013 Spengler Cup. Despite having the 4:0 lead before the end of the second period, CSKA pushed hard and turned the game into a late thriller.
Kevin
Romy scored a goal and added an assist helping his team reach the final goal of
their quest - winning the 2013 Spengler Cup in Davos.
The
lone unbeaten team kept their record until the end and shot for the skies as
they leave Davos with glory.
Servette
were off to a great start scoring a pair in the first two periods which gave
them a lift for the rest of the game. Juraj Simek got the game's first goal as
he fired on the powreplay picking up a rebound. Dennis Hollenstein doubles on
the assist from Romy three minutes later.
Servette
continued in the sam manner in the second period as Lennart Petrell at 23:48
and Kevin Romy at 36:21 give a huge lead to the Swiss side. Still, Oleg
Saprykin is able to get the answer before the break and get some interest into
the game. Servette had the championship within their grasp building a huge
lead, but CSKA wouldn't agree during the final period.
Alexander
Frolov opens the scoring in the third period for CSKA with a magnificent solo
effort in the slot, he took over the puck and deked out two defencemen and the
goalie to slide the puck easily into the empty net and cut the lead to half.
CSKA
put enormous pressure during that final period and therefore outshot Servette
22-5 in the last period and 44-36 overall.
Servette
were good on defence and kept tight covering of the CSKA forwards, not allowing
a lot of space inside or backward passes into the slot. They had some breaks
during that period of play especially when Pistoni took the puck over the right
and stretched to the left, but missed Stana's goal wide to the right. Had he
scored, it could have given them a huge lift.
Though
then at 56:31 Nikita Zaitsev jumps in from the blue and fires a one-timed blast
from the slot as Alexander Frolov got the assist from behind the net. And there
you have a close game.
CSKA
spent the final two minutes of the game entirely inside Servette's zone firing
from all spots, but nothing could go through.
Kaspars
Daugavins puts the game to an end as he scores the emtpy-netter exactly a
minute before the end. Stana was pulled half a minute earlier. CSKA tried to
pull him once again and took the timeout, but nothing helped.
Geneve
Servette were the best team in the tournament overall and deservedly took the
win. We'll see if they can go two for two this year.