“Ak Bars” played one goal – Newspaper Kommersant No. 61 (7506) dated 04/08/2023

In the fourth match of the semi-final round of the play-offs of the Fonbet Championship of the Kontinental Hockey League, Avangard lost to Ak Bars 0:1 at home. The score in the series was 3:1 in favor of the Kazan club, which on Sunday at home can close it and reach the final of the Gagarin Cup.

Having won the first of two matches in Omsk, Ak Bars has already completed the minimum program on the road. Moreover, Kazan scored a super-strong victory, losing 0:2 until the 55th minute and scoring the decisive third goal in overtime, and such feats are usually inspiring. Avangard, on the other hand, experienced severe disappointment two days ago, having given up their game, and put themselves in a difficult position, because the prospect of returning to Kazan was looming with a total score of 1:3.

So the psychological advantage before the fourth match was owned rather by Ak Bars, but Omsk played at home, where they always have deafening support from the stands.

In the very first shifts, they loaded guest goalkeeper Timur Bilyalov to the fullest. Particularly active was the second link, where Alex Broadhurst centers, and nimble Sergey Tolchinsky and Arseniy Gritsyuk nimble along the edges. In both lost meetings, they did not help the team, and the efforts of one of the first three, led by Korban Knight, were not enough.

True, the activity of the owners, who tried to attack with all links, did not lead to anything. Somewhere Bilyalov dragged, but in general, Kazan defended very strictly and in an organized manner – in the best traditions of the right hockey guru Zinetula Bilyaletdinov. Periodically, they rolled into a foreign zone. Artem Galimov generally found himself alone on the penny, and goalkeeper Vasily Demchenko defuse the situation with great difficulty. In the first period, “Ak Bars” even moved the opponent – 9:6 on hits on target, although “Avangard” spent more time in the attack.

The second twenty-minute period began with the fact that the guests shoved the puck into the goal when Dmitry Voronkov went to finish off after Alexander Radulov’s shot, but at the same time ran into Demchenko. Omsk head coach Mikhail Kravets reasonably requested a video review and got the goal canceled, which really looked dubious. This episode cheered up the owners, and they out of harm’s way again moved the game to the other end of the site. “Barca” again endured an unpleasant stretch and in response they squeezed “Avant-garde”.

In principle, according to this scenario, when the initiative constantly passes to one or the other team, all the matches of the series developed.

Closer to soaking the score, were all the same Kazan. Dmitry Kagarlitsky had a killer moment, but could not beat Demchenko in close combat, and before that, the Omsk goalkeeper was forced to sweat by Kirill Petrov. However, at the end of the period, Avangard also had a good chance to score, after Nikita Dynyak earned the first penalty of the match, and then Artem Lukoyanov joined him. Before the break, however, there were only five seconds left, and Omsk did not have time to cook anything in haste. But a whole minute of the double majority was transferred to the third period.

Avangard, of course, released the best people for sale, including one of the main snipers of the current play-off, Reed Boucher, and as a result, they acted surprisingly passively in the five-on-three format, and then didn’t play one extra. Only already in equal compositions the hosts really wound up, but Ak Bars still patiently defended and waited, waiting for Knight to be sent off. And when the Canadian had already returned to the ice from the penalty box, Voronkov pushed the puck into the goal, taking advantage of the rebound from Demchenko’s shield. Kravets again took a coaching request, but this time the referees counted the goal and, accordingly, punished Avangard with a small fine. In the minority, Omsk survived, but lost precious time. They failed to break through Bilyalov and six of them, when they removed their goalkeeper. And they had practically no dangerous throws. Kazan won 1:0 and are now leading the series 3:1. They can reach the final of the Gagarin Cup already on Sunday if they defeat Avangard again on their site.

On Saturday the fourth game of the second, western, semi-final will take place. In it, CSKA leads in the series against SKA with a score of 2:1.

Alexander Ilyin