Despite yesterday’s terrible events, it was decided not to postpone the Avtomobilist – SKA match in Yekaterinburg. For the decisive match of the series, the army coach again presented a radically different lineup from the previous match: the author of the key error that led to Auto’s goal in extra time, defender Maxim Fedotov, as well as the forwards. Andrei Chivilev, Brendan Laipsik, Nikolai Polyakov and Emil Galimov. Their places were taken by Nikita Kamalov, Alexander Kadeikin, Alex Galchenyuk, Stepan Starkov and Svyatoslav Grebenshchikov.
In addition, the playing combinations of the SKA attack have undergone serious changes: the army coaching staff has broken the first link of the team, sending Vasily Glotov to the first three with Galchenyuk and Gritsyuk, and placing Mikhail Vorobyov with Valentin Zykov and Marat. Khairullin. The most feigned couple of St. Petersburg players, Glotov-Khairullin, broke up in the main match of the season.
The Yekaterinburg team also had a change in its lineup: defender Jesse Blacker, injured in the previous match, was replaced in the lineup by Alexander Sevostyanov. Kirill Vorobyov appeared together with Maxim Osipov instead of the Canadian Kazakh.
In the first minutes of the match there was no feeling that SKA needed to win at all costs; On the contrary, Avtomobilist seemed much more interesting in attack, which had more chances to open the scoring. But the opposite happened: midway through the first half the home team did not take advantage of their opportunity, but the guests were able to take the lead in this series for the first time on a counterattack. In the final phase, Glotov did everything: he shot himself, gave the final touch and crossed several rival players.
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A few minutes later, the military team won the right to play for the majority, which was achieved 21 seconds later by Galchenyuk, who had returned to the lineup, with a filigree pass from Kadeikin, who had returned to the lineup. The scenario turned out to be very similar to the fourth match of the Avtomobilist series – Ak Bars – after two missed goals, Nikolai Zavarukhin replaced Evgeny Alikin with Vladimir Galkin, who first came out on the ice in the confrontation with SKA.
For the rest of the time he kept the goal intact, but at the other end of the court, Nikita Serebryakov also swept away everything that flew in his direction: in the first 20 minutes he made 16 saves.
But in the second twenty minutes Serebryakov still failed. SKA scored in their own goal: the commotion at the start of the attack provoked a retaliatory attack by the Yekaterinburg team, which ended with Stefan da Costa’s goal from the dime. But even before the second break, the army team regained its two-goal lead: less than a minute before the siren sounded, Nikita Kamalov responded to Mikhail Vorobyov’s pass and hit Vladimir Galkin for the first time.
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The Yekaterinburg team had a great opportunity to get back into the game already at the beginning of the third period: Kamalov played carelessly with his stick while trying to penetrate the attacking zone and for four minutes he went to the penalty area. However, the army team resisted, but in the middle of twenty minutes it gave in with the same force: the SKA fell asleep in its place, Alexei Makeev, who without resistance beat Serebryakov, who had lost sight of the puck.
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The pressure from the automobilists became increasingly powerful and the SKA found itself in an unusual role: the guests were turned away, only to avoid the threat of their own goal. A couple of minutes before the siren sounded, Nikolai Zavarukhin knocked down the goalkeeper and the army team scored into an empty net. Marat Khairullin scored twice and sealed SKA’s victory: the St. Petersburg team survived and was able to avoid a dry defeat in the series. Now the confrontation returns to the northern capital. Roman Rotenberg’s pupils still don’t want to go on holiday.
