Following the results of the fourth game of the second round series of the KHL playoffs, the overall tasks of SKA and Avtomobilist to continue the confrontation have not changed at all. The Army club still needed to win all the following matches in order to successfully come back from 0-3 in the cup series for the second time in the league’s history.
The first step in solving this difficult task was taken by SKA in Yekaterinburg, winning away from home (5-2). But the overall position of the St. Petersburg army in this series remained as unstable as possible (1-3), because the Urals only needed to win one match to secure a ticket to the semifinals of the Gagarin Cup. .
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In the fifth match of the playoff series, Avtomobilist still could not count on the main defender Jesse Blacker, who stayed in Yekaterinburg, where he continues to recover in the individual program. Striker Sergei Shirokov, who only participated in one game for SKA, is also not in the lineup.
In turn, French striker Stéphane Da Costa played in the promotion and went from fourth to third, exchanging places with Danil Romantsev. Young defender Alexander Sevostyanov was replaced in the fourth team by forward Ilya Ovchinnikov. Thus, the automobilist coach Nikolai Zavarukhin changed the application scheme from “8+12” to “7+13”.
Goalkeeper Evgeny Alikin took his usual place on the last line, who in the last match was replaced by Vladislav Galkin after the second missed goal. As for SKA, the coaching staff of the military team, after the first victory of the series, decided to stabilize the squad and for the first time in a long time did not make a single adjustment to the combinations compared to the previous match.
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The beginning of the match almost turned into a complete disaster for SKA, but everything was limited by local difficulties. In the fourth minute of the opening period, Anatoly Golyshev received the puck behind the goal, from where he found a pass to Alexei Makeev, who, with the help of a successful rebound off Vasily Glotov’s leg, surprised Nikita Serebryakov.
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In the previous five matches of the series, the main rule always worked: whoever opens the score wins. In addition, earlier in the current playoffs, Avtomobilist won all seven matches in which the Ural team managed to open the score. In this sense, the factor of the first lost goal alone did not promise anything favorable for the hosts, but after some changes the position of the army team could have become truly catastrophic.
First, Brooks Macek fell face to face with Serebryakov, put him under the inconvenience and threw him into the “house”, but the SKA goalkeeper was on the spot. And in the next attack, Nikita saved the army team after a point-blank shot by Yegor Alekseev. In the space of a minute, the visitors missed two big opportunities to extend their lead and cause real concern for the hosts.
Instead, the Russian goalkeeper’s most important saves instilled positive momentum in the home field players, who quickly restored balance on the scoreboard. Defender Artyom Sergeev found Arseniy Gritsyuk with a brilliant pass under the other’s blue line, the former Avangard forward entered the zone in the center and shot from under Ovchinnikov exactly to the left corner; Alikin did not help.
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After scoring the goal, the St. Petersburg players played much more actively and immediately rushed forward to take advantage of their success. The military team unleashed a flurry of attacks against Alikin’s goal and came close to scoring seven minutes before the break. Glotov went to meet the automobilist goalkeeper and lost the duel with him, followed by a series of point-blank shots, but the puck never reached the goal. SKA continued to assault the Urals’ goal, and now Valentin Zykov attacked from close range, but Alikin, who had become excited, easily put the puck into the trap.
As was the case with Avtomobilist at the beginning of the match, now SKA also failed to convert the dangerous moments created by the wave into the same series of goals. But one goal was not enough for the locals to go into the break with the score tied. This is all due to the incontinence of defender Sergeev, who, apparently, took the obvious instruction to play as hard as possible against the opposing leaders too seriously. In the middle zone, Artyom shot Da Costa hard in the back, receiving a two-minute penalty for blocking.
The driver took advantage of this gift and converted the first power play in this match. The hosts could not get the puck out of the zone, Semyon Kizimov played brilliantly, then Makeev received play on the right flank, after which he moved towards the post and managed to shoot from an almost zero angle exactly between Serebryakov’s pads. He scored a double and put the Ural team ahead for the second time in the game.
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Midway through the second twenty minutes, SKA responded with their own majority conversion. The locals’ first attempt to use an extra player failed, but the Saint Petersburg team took advantage of the next opportunity to play much better with five against four. Visiting defenseman Maxim Osipov tried to throw the puck over the boards, but Marat Khairullin made a perfect interception early on and then set up Mikhail Vorobyov for the final touch shot.
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Vorobyov’s goal was a turning point, turning the period 180 degrees. Before the second penalty and the missed goal, Avtomobilist acted very confidently in defense, but two minutes later, Khairullin made a solo performance, which led to the home team’s third goal in this match. Marat made an interception while still in his own zone, escaped from Kirill Vorobyov, broke into someone else’s zone and threw from under Osipov from the circle exactly to the nearest corner.
As soon as the referees took a throw-in in the center circle, just six seconds later the puck was behind Alikin again – Arseniy Gritsyuk scored. Alex Galchenyuk pinned Nick Ebert in the visiting zone, Arseniy picked up the puck in the slot and threw it into Alikin’s “house.” Thanks to the second goal of the match, Gritsyuk joined Makeev in the list of players who scored a double in this match.
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In just 140 seconds, three SKA goals were scored, during which the home team turned the 1:2 into 4:2. After the fourth missed goal, the Avtomobilist coaching staff replaced the goalkeeper, sent Alikin to half-time and called on Galkin’s services for the second game in a row. It might seem that at that moment the Ural team had not even suffered a fall, but a real knockout and could no longer hold out in this match.
But Avtomobilist did not give up and remained in the game. The second power play conversion of the game helped. In equal numbers, the visiting striker Alexey Byvaltsev rushed towards Serebryakov: Nikita first saved the team, and then knocked down Alexey. Due to the trip, the local goalkeeper received two minutes, and the victim himself took advantage of the SKA goalkeeper’s withdrawal, managing to reduce the difference on the scoreboard to a minimum. Serebryakov did not see the moment of the click, so he did not have time to react.
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The SKA goalkeeper was left helpless at the start of the third period after a brilliant shot by Ebert. The American defender, who made a mistake in the episode with SKA’s fourth goal, restored his personal status quo by sending the fourth puck into the military team’s goal. Only 21 seconds had passed since the start of the period and the score on the scoreboard was already 4:4.
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It seems that only at that moment the teams remembered that they were actually playing a playoff game, and not a preseason game in the Puchkov tournament, and that the stakes were high. For a long time the game was calm and the rare shots were taken mainly from positions where it was only possible to hit the target with a lot of luck. With each minute the tension grew inexorably. Everything had to be decided by a mistake or a brilliant aggravation.
And eight minutes before the end of the third half everything was settled in the SKA defense zone. The army team made a series of positional errors after a missed throw-in, and Andrei Obidin got it right and sent the fifth puck into the St. Petersburg goal. For the 27-year-old forward, this goal was his first in the current playoffs, and what an important moment he scored it.
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After the missed goal, SKA had 8 minutes and 20 seconds at their disposal to send the match to extra time. The Army team had a majority to help after Sergei Zborovsky was sent off for throwing the discus. It has not been implemented. Kizimov then earned a completely spontaneous expulsion in a foreign zone, leaving the guests in the minority 97 seconds before the final siren sounded.
The hosts tried to take advantage of the strange player and make it 5:5, but it didn’t happen and the season ended for SKA. Avtomobilist made a great comeback in St. Petersburg 2-4 and won the series 4-1. The Yekaterinburg club for the first time in its history reached the semifinals of the Gagarin Cup, becoming the second participant in the third round of this year’s playoffs. There Nikolai Zavarukhin and his team were joined by Alexey Zavarukhin and his Traktor. The brotherly fairy tale continues.
