Traktor knocked Dynamo Moscow out of the Gagarin Cup
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Another sensation of the current Fonbet play-off of the KHL championship was a very loud sensation. In the second round, Dynamo, which took the lead in the regular season, was eliminated from the Gagarin Cup, and was brutally beaten by Traktor. The Chelyabinsk team needed a minimum number of matches to deal with the Moscow club – four. In the fourth, they beat their opponents on their home court with a score of 5:4.
The disaster that Dynamo suffered can, of course, be called extraordinary, even if the KHL regular season winner’s misfire in the playoffs is not an extraordinary event. On the contrary, this title has never served as a guarantee of success. In the entire history of the league, dating back to 2008, there has only been one case when winning the Continental Cup resulted in the Gagarin Cup – five years ago, both prizes went to CSKA. And so the regular season winners, as a rule, quit the race not even on the closest approaches to the most valuable prize, but, sometimes, already in the starting round.
But Dynamo’s departure turned out to be too specific not to highlight it.
It was impossible to imagine: Traktor, rather modest in the regular season, copes with the magnificent Dynamo without suffering, more convincingly than at the previous stage with Salavat Yulaev.
He fought the Ufa team for six matches, and four matches with the next opponent, smashing him to pieces.
The fourth match of the series, by the way, for a long time suggested thoughts about Dynamo’s complete submission to fate, about its acceptance. It, however, opened the scoring, showing that the majority have not forgotten how to play and are still capable of producing such amazing combinations as this one, with Nikita Gusev’s pass to Cedric Paquette, soft and comfortable as a down pillow. But Puckett’s goal looked like that, a minor detail.
“Traktor” has already managed to get used to the fact that local failures do not bother him at all, that, despite them, he continues to stand firmly on both of his tracks.
In general, the hosts got even after two and a half minutes, when Charles Robinson put his stick on the spot and waited for a lucky rebound – the puck hit the crossbar, but flew off it into the back of goalkeeper Maxim Motorygin to tumble over the ribbon.
Soon Daniil Yurtaikin played brilliantly in front of the goal, who was not hampered by the fact that he stood with his back to them. And then Anton Burdasov scored with his signature laser throw, when Traktor gained a numerical advantage.
Motorygin was at fault for this missed goal – few of the goalkeepers could have gotten out of it. But coach Alexey Kudashov still put him on the bench. And, probably, many of those who are not indifferent to Dynamo and, after its success in the regular season, managed to believe in the limitlessness of the team’s capabilities, probably replayed one thought in their heads, which until now they had been vigorously pushing away so as not to spoil the anticipation of triumph. It is well known that in the playoffs we need goalkeepers who can not only not fail, do without obvious mistakes, but who can pull the team up, take – and not just once, but constantly – shots like the one Burdasov made. Without them, even powerful clubs are usually doomed. And Motorygin is definitely not from this category – unlike Zach Fucale from Traktor.
However, Ilya Konovalov, who replaced Dynamo’s number one, immediately missed out on Jack Rodewald. It smelled like destruction. “Dynamo,” however, found the strength not to give up, although the impression was that with its simple and logical game, in which everything is outlined and marked, but there is also room for maneuver and improvisation, “Traktor” ruined it. The second period was a hymn to the spirituality of the guests. Jordan Weal, who converted the next power play, pulled Dynamo closer to Traktor, and their decisive and angry attitude was also described by an episode in which Vladislav Mikhailov, fighting for the puck until the end, crashed into Fucale so hard that he almost incapacitated him .
Zach Fucale survived and played a key role in subsequent events. “Dynamo”, which suddenly came to life, tormented and tormented “Tractor”, not allowing it to rest. But Fucale stood as an impregnable rock, and the tension level flatly refused to go down. A sign of it could even be considered a rare embarrassment already in the final period, when both teams managed to simultaneously earn a penalty for violating the number of players: well, in such a situation, it’s no wonder to miss an extra player on the court – everyone is in a hurry to fight.
And “Dynamo” in the middle of the period, having suffered in the minority, thanks to the assisting talent of Nikita Gusev and the ability to hit the goal of Jordan Weale, meanwhile, reduced the gap to a minimum. Dynamo’s hope was extinguished by Maxim Shabanov’s phenomenal speed rush from his own zone after the puck thrown out of it and a dashing dribble performed by the Traktor forward in his duel with Konovalov. But Eric O’Dell’s puck half a minute before the siren made it flare up again. “Dynamo” pressed desperately after it, and yet “Traktor” did not allow him to at least extend the series, sending him on vacation much earlier than expected.
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