SKA are in the next round, Lokomotiv stay alive

Western Conference

SKA St. Petersburg (1) - Atlant Moscow Oblast (8) 7-0

Home side SKA left no doubts arise about who would celebrate today. In front of 12,400 fans the favourites had a perfect start when Artemy Panarin deflected a blue line shot by Alexander Osipov into the net after only 53 seconds when he stood at the left post. Despite dominating the game completely the hosts had to wait until the start of the middle period where Mikhail Varnakov doubled the lead at 25:48 when he conquered the puck at the right wing and scored in the 1-on-1 with guest goalie Galimov. Three minutes later it was Tony Martensson who scored the next goal after he received a pass by Viktor Tikhonov from behind the net. At 33:05 it was again Martensson who used a perfect cross pass by Patrick Thoresen to get the puck past the goalie from the second post. Just 28 seconds later Alexander Kucheryavenko made it 5-0 SKA when he received a puck after a strange bounce back from the boards. In the last 20 minutes SKA invested less but when Atlant took several penalties the hosts used one of them through Patrick Thoresen who made it half a dozen from a short distance at 56:05. Half a minute later Mikhail Varnakov completed another double after a won face off to score the final 7-0!

In games #1 (0-1 OT) and #3 (3-1) Atlant were able to show their class but in the other three matches of this series they were clearly outplayed by regular season winners SKA (0-7, 1-6, 0-7).

SKA have won the series 4-1

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl (4) - Severstal Cherepovets (5) 3-2

This is by far the closest series in the Gagarin Cup playoffs so far. Also game #5 ended with just one goal difference as did the previous four. For home side Lokomotiv it was a must win game and they accomplished their goal to stay in the playoffs for now. In the middle period Mikelis Redlihs and Alexei Kalyuzhny twice gave the lead to Lokomotiv with the equalizer through Mikhail Anisin in between. Anisin then went on to score the late equalizer for Severstal at 54:51 in power play. Severstal received two penalties in the following minutes and with Stanislav Yegorshev and Bogdan Kiselevich in the penalty box they took a timeout at 57:18. Still they couldn't avoid that Staffan Kronwall scored the match winner for Lokomotiv 16 seconds later with the two men advantage. In the last minute of play Severstal goalie Vasily Koshechkin stayed on the bench for an additional skater but it was too late for another equalizer by the guests.

The series continues with game #6 in Cherepovets on Saturday at 14.00 CET.

Severstal lead 3-2 in the series

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