Metallurg defended its leadership in the KHL championship match with Avangard

In the central match of the Fonbet game day of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) championship, Metallurg defeated Avangard – 4:3. The Magnitogorsk team scored the decisive goal in overtime and still leads the regular season summary table.

A very important match took place in Magnitogorsk not only in the fight for leadership in the Eastern Conference, but also for victory in the Continental Cup, which is awarded to the best KHL club based on the results of the regular season. It is already obvious that from the East, first of all, “Metallurg” and “Avangard” will lay claim to this trophy, which will automatically also give a significant bonus in the form of the highest seeding in the play-offs. Before the fourth head-to-head meeting this season, Magnitogorsk ranked first in the league with 82 points, and Omsk was in second, scoring 81 points. At the same time, the “hawks” had an advantage in so-called lost points, since they played two fewer games than the “steelworkers”.

At the same time, Avangard had been trying for quite some time and could not get past Metallurg. But now it seems like a convenient opportunity has presented itself for this, given that Andrei Razin’s team has just returned from a difficult trip to Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, where they played two matches each with “Admiral” and “Amur”. Although she still managed to catch her breath a little and recover thanks to the three-day break. True, Omsk residents also visited Barys in Astana on Thursday.

The KHL leaders immediately exchanged the most intense moments through the efforts of their first lines. In the ranks of Avangard, as usual, the greatest danger came from the best-performing trio of the current championship, Reed Boucher—Ryan Spooner—Vladimir Tkachev. Until recently, he was generally considered a team of one link, but recently he has been actively helped by a new combination led by center forward Nikolai Prokhorkin, as well as with Tomas Yurcho and Damir Zhafyarov on the edges, who joined the Omsk club during the period of additional applications. However, it was the first five of the Hawks who opened the scoring, when Spooner threw the puck from the half-zone under the crossbar, and Tkachev scored an assist.

Metallurg does not have a unit that would clearly stand out from the rest of the squad, but it is not clear who to expect trouble from.

Less than a minute after Spooner’s goal, the hosts scored a nominally third triple from Igor Geraskin. The center forward, who moved to Magnitogorsk from Omsk during the season, took advantage of the fact that visiting goalkeeper Andrei Mishurov was fumbling behind the goal, followed by an interception, and Daniil Vovchenko instantly put the puck to his partner on the dime.

In the second period, Geraskin and his comrades achieved success again when Vovchenko blocked Nikita Grebenkin’s cross. But again after some seconds the score became equal. Ivan Igumnov launched into an adventurous pass and unexpectedly made the most of it, beating goalkeeper Ilya Nabokov in a duel for the neutral puck and, as they say, shooting it into the net. However, Nabokov and Mishurov helped out their teammates much more often. There were many chances at both goals, so the almost minimal draw – 2:2 – did not reflect the nature of this double-edged match. And yet, shortly before the second break, the visitors took the lead when their first pair of defenders made a pass on the opponent’s blue line and Semyon Chistyakov accurately clicked from long range. And the hosts were lucky that the best sniper of the championship, Boucher, lost a duel to Nabokov with a clean one-to-nil result, otherwise they would have received two goals in the locker room.

In the third period, Avangard switched to more pragmatic hockey, with the exception of the strike team, which is focused exclusively on attack. It is curious that only in the final twenty minutes did one of the teams, namely Metallurg, earn its first majority. But it, like the removal of the Omsk team towards the end of regular time, could not be realized. And yet, Magnitka managed to save itself a second before the siren, when their top scorer Danila Yurov scored from a pass from Geraskin. And then he brought the hosts victory in overtime, hitting an empty net after the opponent in the three-on-three format replaced his goalkeeper with a fourth field player. Metallurg prevailed 4:3 and retained the lead with 84 points.

Alexander Ilyin