“Avtomobilist” beat “Metallurg” with a score of 5:3 in the play-off series of the KHL championship
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The semi-final play-off series of the Fonbet KHL Championship, which pitted two Ural clubs against each other, stretched over a maximum distance of seven matches. In the sixth, Avtomobilist evened the score in the confrontation, beating Metallurg – 5:3, despite the loss of the main goalkeeper Evgeniy Alikin.
The sixth match of this series broke its main trend. In all five previous ones, the outcome was determined only in the end, thanks to goals scored by one of the teams either in the last minutes or in overtime. Now there is no such outcome.
At the same time, the hosts’ rather convincing victory was a rather unexpected result, given the circumstances. During the playoffs, goalkeeper Evgeniy Alikin turned into one of the most important figures for Avtomobilist. And its reliability was one of the main factors that allowed the Ekaterinburg team to adequately resist the higher-ranked Metallurg in the semi-finals. Coach Nikolai Zavarukhin tried to do without Alikin only once in the series. But in the fourth match, backup Vladimir Galkin stayed on the court for only five minutes and went to the bench, missing two goals in a row. In the sixth meeting, Evgeniy Alikin, who, apparently, was experiencing health problems, was not in reserve.
However, this time Galkin played with amazing confidence, as did his entire team as a whole. Metallurg was able to score their first goal in the match only in the middle of the second period. By that time, he himself had already missed three.
At the beginning of the final twenty minutes, the Magnitogorsk team seemed to revive the intrigue when Roman Kantserov reduced the gap to two goals. However, in the remaining time Avtomobilist demonstrated an exemplary defensive game.
In this series, everything will be decided by the seventh match. It will take place on Monday in Magnitogorsk. The winner of the other semi-final had long been Lokomotiv, which defeated Traktor in four matches.
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