CSKA won by rebound – Kommersant
[ad_1]
CSKA came close to winning the Gagarin Cup for the second time in a row. The army team took the lead in the final series of the current play-off of the Fonbet KHL championship with a score of 3:1, beating Ak Bars in the fourth match at home – 2:1 – thanks to a goal that was terribly offensive for Kazan, scored at the end of the final period.
Ak Bars, it seems, went to this match, the defeat in which put him in a too unenviable position, wound up before the redistribution, and maybe even beyond it. The plant was illustrated by Alexander Radulov’s violation in the very first minute: he rapaciously loitered near the army zone and considered it necessary not only to drive past the opponent, but to hurt him. Ak Bars held out in the minority, and then received the majority twice in a row – from CSKA, too, of course, emotions gushed like a fountain. And it was a terrible stretch for the hosts, a stretch that they experienced with tremendous difficulty. The puck slipped twice along the “ribbon” of the army gate, refusing to cross it, and goalkeeper Adam Reideborn did not bend under the most powerful cannonade.
But it was Ak Bars that opened the scoring after all. Sergey Plotnikov threw the puck out of the zone – and threw it right on the stick of Stanislav Galiev. Galiev has a chic throw, but Reideborn coped with it. Ak Bars was rescued by Kirill Semyonov, who, as befits any striker in the playoffs, smelling blood, rushed to the spot, to finishing.
CSKA has already shown a hundred times in this playoff that individual misfires, even those born not from scratch, but from the general, often visible, advantage of the opponent, do not bother him much. And Semenov’s goal did not make the army team tremble. Soon they found themselves with an extra player and did not delay in converting the advantage.
It was the same trick that can be so useful in confrontations with a team that can defend extremely well, blocking all areas and directions that radiate danger. And Konstantin Okulov, who threw the puck in the direction of the goal, but, apparently, deliberately did not give it maximum acceleration, knew, of course, about the ability of partner Anton Slepyshev to deftly correct such throws.
The second period of this match can be called in some sense absolutely paradoxical. How do teams usually play in the play-off finals, which managed to make sure in 20 minutes that they have the same total today, and also that any liberties can be severely punished? Of course, they prefer caution. But CSKA and Ak Bars, on the contrary, opened up after the break. Both of them did not care about the classic final hockey – they wanted to fly forward. And how does it work in the back.
And with such a style, the goals, in a strange way, did not ripen in any way, although it seemed that there should be a sea of them. But no, it didn’t work out, even if at times a real miracle protected the opponents from scoring. Like, for example, in that episode when Radulov rolled out on Reideborn with a heavy armored train that could not turn off the road, even if you hit his legs with sticks from both sides. It’s good that the goalkeeper somehow stopped his passage. But after it, the puck still jumped out to the goal again, and it seems, given how many Ak Bars hockey players accumulated in this area, it was obliged to roll into them. Didn’t roll.
And CSKA, having earned another majority at the end of the period, pressed Kazan so hard that it was impossible to imagine how their exhausted four would survive. But somehow, she survived.
In the final period, both opponents continued in the same dashing vein. And it was hardly surprising that within just a few seconds they generously exchanged clean exits one on one. Pavel Karnaukhov ran into Timur Bilyalov in the army, Dmitry Voronkov in Reideborn in Kazan.
Overtime looked great, the most logical crown of this meeting. And from the feeling that he was actually inevitable, there was nowhere to go, looking at how the right moments were being squandered one after another.
The emergency that canceled the overtime happened four and a half minutes before the siren. Konstantin Okulov famously passed Vladislav Kamenev, who was moving towards Bilyalov. But that was still interfered with, and the forward’s shot, strictly speaking, did not come out – the puck went past the post to the far side. But Kamenev obviously never for a moment forgot the important law of the hockey play-off – never turn off the game, never turn off, even if everyone is sure that you can take a break. The attacker took out this puck and, having, in essence, no special choice, simply quietly threw it away from behind the gate somewhere to the patch. And she, having ricocheted on the shield of Bilyalov, who did not have time to orient himself, crawled into the net.
“Ak Bars” removed the goalkeeper, attacked desperately, but achieved nothing. And now he is losing in the series with a score of 1:3. This means that in the next match CSKA can win the final. True, this match will take place on Tuesday in Kazan.
[ad_2]
Source link