photo: RIA Novosti
The rojiblancos beat the military team in a tense match and won the main pre-season tournament in Moscow.
This year’s Mayor’s Cup, frankly, pleases. If in previous years the fans were quite calm about this tournament and the press did not pay special attention, at the end of August 2023 everything seemed to turn upside down before our eyes. The first match Dynamo – CSKA was sold out, and the hockey itself did not let us down in terms of quality. Well, the military team and Spartak made it to the final, and for the first time in many years of the tournament’s duration, the capital was treated to a major action movie in the pre-season.
PREDICTIVE END
Both CSKA and Spartak did not encounter much resistance in the short run two games into the tournament. The red-and-blue hockey players had difficulties only in the “fraternal” derby against Dynamo, and the red-and-whites beat Vityaz near Moscow and Kunlun quite by chance.
As a result, from a certain point of view, the predictable end is the best KHL team of recent years and Spartak, which has seriously changed in the off-season and currently offers a nice offensive hockey with an emphasis on constant possession of the puck. The main rehearsal before the start of the KHL season and the fiercest principled duel – it was impossible to find a better scenario.
photo: RIA Novosti
LAST GAME FOR IVAN FEDOTOV IN 2023?
The main goalkeeper of the game was the head coach of the army team Sergey Fedorov, having released the disgraced Ivan Fedotov, who literally 10 minutes before the start of the game, the FHR allowed him to play for CSKA in official matches only from from January 1. , 2024. It turns out that for Iván the final of the Major Cup against Spartak is the last game of 2023.
Defects in the defense of “Spartak”
The rojiblancos, as if they were nervous, jumped onto the ice and in the first two minutes of the game they had a real opportunity to open the account. Maxim Sorkin jumped out to meet Patrick Rybar, but the door came off. However, after a couple of minutes, Spartak burst into activity. Link Loktionova arranged a shootout near the Fedotov gates, but to no avail.
Surprisingly, after 11 minutes, playing in the majority, Spartak once again allowed the quick military to go toe to toe with their goalkeeper. When you like attacking a lot, the risk of surprising is very high, especially since CSKA have very fast forwards who are waiting for the opportunity to pull off a trick from Pavel Bure’s Russian rocket arsenal.
RED-WHITE TRIGGER TONE
Moving forward, the first period showed that it is quite difficult for CSKA to play with the current Spartak, and the level of motivation of the rojiblancos to play with the eternal irritant is outrageous. In addition, Fedorov’s defenses were too far away in the initial segment, which allowed the rojiblancos to significantly outperform the army team both in attack time and in shots (23-6).
Speaking in boxing terms, the tone of the blows at some point ends in a knockdown, and Spartak, as expected, opened the scoring in the match, using the first majority of three. A minute before the end of the first half, Alexander Burmistrov, unstoppable in this tournament (three goals!) after the transfer of Matvey Zaseda, actually threw the puck into the army locker room. 0:1
photo: RIA Novosti
STANDARD ARMY SHARING
CSKA, of course, crushed from the beginning of the second segment, but Spartak, surprisingly, did not give in and even tried to counterattack. The game has become more viscous. Despite all the attempts to attack by the military team, the rojiblancos put sticks in the favorite’s attack, which made the game significantly complicated for the owner of the Gagarin Cup. Considering that Fedorov’s wards were somewhat confused, for them such a game by Spartak was a kind of revelation.
On the Spartak mountain, CSKA’s offensive momentum led to the dismissal of defender Nikita Sokolov. The time has come to go around like a squirrel in a guard wheel at the red and white gates to the Slovakian Patrik Rybar, who brought out this heavy minority for Spartak. It seems that it became clear which goalkeeper will start the KHL regular season in Alexei Zhamnov’s team.
photo: RIA Novosti
QUANTITY TO EXPECTED QUALITY
In Spartak he played exactly the same long pressing rule as in the army. After many attacks, CSKA’s spring straightened out, and the number of attacks and shots turned into quality.
Five and a half minutes before the end of the second half, Vladislav Kamenev, another top scorer of the tournament, equalized the score 1:1. The Spartak coaches requested a review of the goal, allegedly there was an infraction, but the judges approved the legality of the puck and the rojiblancos received another minority. Admittedly, the military team bypassed its sixth ice hockey player and the lineups were even.
photo: RIA Novosti
Under the CSKA attack the entire end of the second segment passed. He helped the army team in this regard the leader of the Spartak attacks, Alexander Khokhlacheva, recorded on board as a player of the army club. But the score on the scoreboard has not changed.
NOT THE FINAL CUT, BUT THE REAL ONE
In the third half it became clear that for the teams that were playing in the final it was no longer just the final of the traditional Moscow tournament, but something else. The overall picture of the match was more like a tense match in the Gagarin Cup playoffs. Incredible speeds, so to speak, spoke to the fact that history was being made in front of the packed Megasport stands. One attack followed another. Of course, people have been waiting all summer for this type of hockey. The physical preparation of the teams is especially striking: there are no straight or padded legs, just movement.
The number of eliminations in the third period again prevailed among the army, as in the first period. But Spartak was in no hurry to take advantage of excellent opportunities to advance. Although the third, most of the rojiblancos in the third period were constantly bombarded by Ivan Fedotov’s goals.
photo: RIA Novosti
And yet, on the fourth try, Spartak oversold. For almost two minutes, the rojiblancos combined in the army zone, in the end the puck came into the hands of a master like Alexander Khokhlachev, who with a biting shot 1-2 defeated Fedotov in class. And there were three minutes left to play. And a minute later, with a small breakthrough on the flank and a delicate shot from Maxim Tsyplakov, Spartak pulled away 1:3. And put an end to this end. A couple of minutes before the end, CSKA finally broke down and allowed the nominal guests to make a couple of more serious counterattacks.
