SKA made the difference in 17 seconds – Sport – Kommersant

The fourth match took place in the semi-finals of the play-off “Fonbet” of the Continental Hockey League SKA-CSKA. Despite the fact that the Muscovites, playing at home, opened the score, the Petersburgers won – 3:1. Moreover, the guests turned the game literally in 17 seconds at the end of the second period. Now in this series a draw is 2:2.

After two very hard matches in St. Petersburg, the third meeting of the leaders of the Western Conference, held in Moscow, unexpectedly ended with a big score of 4:0. This is how the capital’s army team convincingly responded to the defeat from teammates, when it seemed that those who had spent much less energy in the previous rounds of the playoffs and the fresher Petersburgers were gradually starting to physically push through the Muscovites.

Moreover, the SKA game seems to have become an unpleasant revelation for the head coach of the team, Roman Rotenberg, who, in the third period of the last match, resorted to rather radical educational measures and put Nikita Gusev, perhaps his most star hockey player, on the bench. Was not included in the forward of the first link and before the fourth confrontation of the series. He was replaced by Emil Galimov. In addition, Rotenberg completely redrawn the second three and sent Damir Zhafyarov to the reserve.

The first dangerous moment in the second Moscow meeting occurred with the participation of Alexander Volkov, who returned to the rotation, but CSKA goalkeeper Adam Reideborn, who scored the third “cracker” in the current play-off two days ago, showed that his goal was still locked.

SKA was generally resolute, and even quickly earned a majority, which, however, was not carried out in the best way.

But already in equality, Mikhail Pashnin almost broke through Reideborn. The defender of the guests went to the firing range and seemed to throw well, but hit the post.

Having heard the characteristic metallic ringing, the Muscovites took it as a signal that they needed to be more active in the attack. Vladislav Kamenev almost scored his ninth goal in the current Gagarin Cup, and then defender Nikita Nesterov charged so hard from the blue line that goalkeeper Dmitry Nikolaev barely deflected the puck, which almost flew into the goal from his shield and lay on top of the net. SKA was also not going to give up the initiative, and at the end of the first period received a five-minute numerical advantage. A large penalty with the removal before the end of the match for a knee strike was punished by the defender of the hosts Artem Sergeev.

Petersburgers had one and a half minutes to implement the excess before the break and, accordingly, three and a half after. For so much time they could score more than one goal, but did not take advantage of such a favorable situation. Reideborn did not even have to overexert himself especially due to the lack of difficult throws. Only at the end of the majority did SKA create a real threat, when Valentin Zykov put the puck on Vasily Glotov’s nickel, and he launched it over the crossbar. CSKA not only survived in the minority, but also took the lead. As in the last meeting, it was opened by Konstantin Okulov, who was given too much freedom in his zone by the army team from the banks of the Neva, allowing him to roll, aim and throw.

The capital’s army team was not averse to repeating the scenario of the previous match otherwise, especially since they had enough opportunities to build on their success. In any case, they controlled the game quite confidently, but the end of the second period was simply discouraging for the Muscovites.

At the 39th minute, in just 17 seconds, they conceded two goals. First, defender Stepan Falkovsky removed the “web”, and immediately Volkov, together with Zykov, broke through the defense of CSKA, the reliability of which was nevertheless affected by the match-penalty of Sergeyev.

In the third period, the St. Petersburg exemplary guarded a minimal advantage, and the team of Sergei Fedorov could not come up with anything in the positional attack. Throws almost did not reach Nikolaev, and it is even difficult to remember any save in his performance. The hosts still had the option of replacing the goalkeeper with a sixth field player, but when Reideborn was already preparing to rush to the bench, Nesterov made a gross mistake. He lost the puck on someone else’s blue line, Zakhar Bardakov robbed him, ran “one to zero” and easily dealt with the Swede.

SKA won 3:1 and equalized the score in the series – 2:2. Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals will take place on Monday in St. Petersburg.

Alexander Ilyin