Dynamo double lead - Ak Bars get OT winner

23 Mar 2013 | Dennis Mende

Regular season winners SKA also lost their second home match against Dynamo and face a very complicated trip to Moscow. In the other match Ak Bars took the lead against Traktor in overtime.

Western Conference finals, day 2

SKA St. Petersburg (1) - Dynamo Moscow (3) 2-4

After the 2-3 loss in game #1 SKA made clear that they wanted a fast revenge but despite having the better start they lay behind soon. At 07:23 Konstantin Kasyanchuk used his own rebound after a shot from short distance to give the guests from Moscow the early lead out of the blue. Now Dynamo had the momentum on their side and Denis Kokarev had a spectacular solo inside the SKA zone to give Denis Mosalyov a perfect pass from behind the net which led to the 2-0 for the guests. SKA worked on their race to catch up and came back at 15:20 when guest goalie Yeryomenko let through a harmless looking shot by Andrei Pervyshin from within the neutral zone. Still the scoring was not yet over in the first period and Alexei Sopin used a one-timer from the right circle to fire the puck into the right top corner for a solid 3-1 lead for Dynamo which was extremly effective during the first 20 minutes.

The middle period saw a very active home side that had a 5 on 3 power play around "half time" which was used by Viktor Tikhonov who won the battle for the puck out of the crowd to get the puck over the goal line from short distance to cut the lead to the half once more for SKA. The joy over this strike didn't stay long as Marek Kvapil's shot through the five-hole of SKA goalie Ezhov - who came in at the start of the second period for the unlucky Kasutin - went in for the 4-2 Dynamo lead. Until the end of the period SKA had several good scoring opportunities but failed all of them.

The third period saw guests who waited for counters and defended relatively easily as SKA failed to create much danger in front of Dynamo goalie Yeryomenko. For the last two minutes Ezhov left the SKA net for an additional attacker but the result didn't change anymore so that Dynamo have taken both away matches and have a comfortable 2-0 lead in this series before their two home matches. For SKA the situation is extremly complicated and they could once more fail in the Conference finals.

Dynamo lead 2-0 in the series

Eastern Conference finals, day 1

Ak Bars Kazan (1) - Traktor Chelyabinsk (3) 2-1 OT

The guests from Chelyabinsk had a perfect start into the series opener when their superstar Evgeny Kuznetsov scored already at 01:54 with a shot from the left wing with a very sharp angle in power play. The hosts now took over the initiative completely and after a two minute interference penalty against Traktor's Andrei Kostitsyn it was Danis Zaripov who used the men advantage and deflected a blue line shot by Ilya Nikulin into the net at 10:19. Ak Bars had several huge chances in the remaining time of the first period but a very strong Michael Garnett in the Traktor net kept the draw for his team. In the following two periods the match was more even but Ak Bars still had the better scoring opportunities. When the game went into overtime it was Konstantin Korneyev who used a power play to give Kazan the game winner at 64:16! Garnett had blocked a shot from the left wing but Korneyev somehow was able to get the puck over the goal line from short distance! Several Traktor players wanted a video review but the referees stayed with their decision which was completely correct as none of the Ak Bars forwards stood inside the goal area!

Both teams meet tomorrow for game #2 which will also take place in Kazan.

Ak Bars lead 1-0 in the series