WORK ON BUGS
On Saturday night in Moscow, the army team and the lynx met again in an ice battle. CSKA decided from the first minutes to show who is the boss in the house: the army team immediately put pressure on it, offered the Cherepovites a lot of power struggle. Severstal, on the other hand, was thrown into the gates of Sharychenkov. After the last match, the mentor of the lynx, Andrey Razin, focused on the throw-in game – it was unpleasant for the yellow and black. At this meeting, the indicator caught up with the army team. In addition, with one of the successful ones the lynx goal attack began. Alexander Suvorov flew to a date with the CSKA goalkeeper and beat Sharychenkov. 1:0.
EMOTIONS ON THE EDGE
Severstal scored the goal in a 4-on-4 format. Okulov and Churkin were sent off for impoliteness. There was a lot of emotion in the match, the teams often had mini-fights. The Army team pulled out more eliminations, but the Bobcats failed to take advantage of most of them. Although they kept the hosts in the area very well.
CSKA decided to spend the second period according to the previous plan. They tried to lock Cherepovets in the box, but tried to move the game away from the goal, at least to the sides, to avoid shots.
CSKA could only respond in the middle of the third half. Furthermore, Severstal again conceded two goals in 44 seconds. Vladislav Kamenev and Mikhail Grigorenko made the packed stands roar in the arena.
ALL OVER AGAIN
Having quickly conceded two, the Cherepovites equalized just as quickly. Defender Nikolai Timashov sent the teams into extra time.
The first extension was dictated by the owners of the site, but it was not possible to identify the winner. In the second extra period, the Bobcats immediately surged forward, and this bold move gave them the win. Nikita Guslistov sent the puck under the pads to Sharychenkov. 3:2 (OT).
Victory for Severstal. The series score is 1:1 and moves to Cherepovets.
WHAT THE COACHES SAID
After the game, the mentors summed up the meeting.
Severstal head coach Andrey Razin shared his impression:
“This is the most difficult game of my coaching career. Thanks guys for the win. We realized a lot of things, we had to change tactics. They played well on throw-ins.
After the first game, we paid attention to that plus of those little things that I’m not going to comment on, but we made adjustments both in positional defense and in the second half. I will not speak, let Sergei Viktorovich Fedorov see this for himself and guess for himself.
Time out in overtime? We “drunk” very strongly, speaking the language of hockey. We have a hockey player who made a mistake, I thought others would overlap with this mistake and decided to take a break. The players needed it, and goalkeeper Sasha Samonov too.
We are already suffering losses. We, the defenders, have two fractures: in the last game Khabarov retired, in this one – Churkin.
CSKA mentor Sergei Fedorov spoke about the reasons for the defeat:
“An opponent with a win. We gave ourselves a chance, unfortunately it didn’t work out. Let’s find out, life goes on. Of course, I would like a different result. But wanting and being able are two different things. We are getting ready to leave, it will be a tough ride for us, we don’t get over Severstal that often.
CSKA lost the first round match for the first time in nine years? The playoffs are such a thing that anything can happen. The soldier did not deviate from the path and step, that’s for sure. Happens. Overtime is part of the playoffs. This is a new stage for our team, no one remembers the past. Unfortunately it didn’t work out today, although the boys did enough to score after extra time.
There’s no need to discuss those goals we conceded, everyone saw them anyway. Let’s take a look at the game. Severstal is a good team. Very organized, mobile with a well-established tactical game scheme. There is nothing new in this for us. All the obedient teams stayed behind.
The stands were full today. Personally, it is important to me that spectators come. For guys, this is a good incentive. The atmosphere is great, I think we have pleased the fans, but not yet with the result”.
WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAID
The scorer of the winning goal, Severstal striker Nikita Guslistov shared his emotions:
How did you score the winner? We started the attack well, since in training we managed to run around the defender, and then we only had to shoot. The whole team worked for four periods, gave a lot on the ice. Our goalie did a great job, he served a lot. I think we totally deserved to win today.
Time out in overtime? They gave me a break, the fourth period, it turns out, like the second period, a distant store. The opponent is very good at imposing. Somewhere we couldn’t get the record out, change in time, we gave a lot of strength. We take these 30 seconds to rest a bit, slow down this pace.
How did you prepare? There was an emphasis on throw-ins – somewhere in your zone, even if you don’t win, just don’t lose. We fixed a lot in this regard, we fixed the exit from the zone. In the last game, CSKA put a lot of pressure on us, in this game we corrected the situation a little, it turned out better.
CSKA striker Maxim Mamin also summed up the match:
“The match itself was good, even though the result is negative. But this will not affect us in any way – we are going to Cherepovets to win two games. I had a one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but today I couldn’t score.
We could have kept the advantage, but conceded a goal. They made a mistake on defense. It was necessary to do extra time, but we are in the playoffs, nobody thought it would be easy. No luck today. The arenas were full, the support was felt.
