Salavat Yulaev’s Gagarin Cup reign ends

09 Mar 2012 | Roman Solovyev

Just like in the West, only one series in the East went on to a seventh game.

Barys 3-4 OT Metallurg Mg

Barys was close to ending the series at home but everything will be decided in the last game in Magnitogorsk.

At 05:48, Andrew Hutchinson came from the penalty box, made a pass to Gavrilin who relayed to Talgat Zhailaulov, who fired to open the scoring. Later, Hutchinson increased the lead with blue line shot on the power play. A minute later, Metallurg cut into the lead when Pavel Zdunov fired the puck home from the left wing.

In the second period, Maxim Sushinsky scored on a penalty shot to tie the game when Alexei Litvinenko tripped him on a breakaway. At 54:59, Anton But gave Metallurg a one-goal lead with a nice solo effort, but the lead was erased a minute later with a goal from Andrei Gavrilin.

The series could have ended in overtime, but Sergei Mozyakin got a pass from Mikhail Yakubov to score the game winner for Metallurg and take the series to the seventh game.

Salavat Yulaev 2-3 Ak Bars

Ak Bars won all three games in Ufa to beat last year's champions Salavat Yulaev 4-2.

Yevgeny Bodrov came from the left wing to score with a backhand shot at 03:29. Ak Bars extended the lead on the power play chance that was created by Andrei Taratukhin's boarding penalty. Kirill Petrov put the puck in the net to make it 2-0.

In the second, Salavat made a comeback. First, Antti Pihlström scored after going in to the zone and fired it home. Andrei Taratukhin tied the game with 1:31 left to play in the middle period when Petri Vehanen made a mistake with stopping the puck after a shot.

The game and the series were decided in the third period. Igor Grigorenko took a two-minute penalty for high-sticking, and then Konstantin Korneyev's shot hit the post and the puck touched the back of Erik Ersberg and went in to the net.

Ak Bars beat their arch-rivals in first playoff round and are now waiting for their next opponent. It can be Traktor if Metallurg Magnitogorsk wins in the series against Barys or Avangard if Barys wins.