Traktor force game 7

Eastern Conference finals, day 6

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

Home side Traktor were the better side from the very begin and were rewarded soon with two early goals. At 08:16 Jan Bulis used the first power play of the game to get the hosts in front. He had received a pass from left to the goal by Stanislav Chistov to score with a one-timer from short distance against the completely surprised Ak Bars goalie Konstantin Barulin. Just two minutes later Anton Glinkin doubled the lead for Traktor with a beautiful solo! Coming from the left circle he deked out two opponents and fired the puck past the goalie!

In the middle period both teams had best chances but only one of them was used - by the guests from Kazan. At 27:24 Denis Golubev received a pass to the left from Artyom Lukoyanov just in front of Traktor goalie Michael Garnett to cut the Traktor lead to the half. The hosts had another two big opportunities in the following minutes but missed both of them.

In the third period Traktor again took over the iniative. One of their attacks was initiated by Vladimir Antipov who conquered the puck behind the Ak Bars net and gave a brilliant cross-pass in front of Barulin to his team colleague Andrei Popov who had no problems to make it 3-1. Ak Bars who showed a rather disappointing performance today, controlled everything until Alexei Morozov surprised Garnett with a shot from a half right position at 54:35 - just a minute after Valery Nichushkin missed the decision for the home side in a break away. In the last minutes of play Ak Bars had several big opportunities when Traktor became a bit shaky in defense but shomehow the hosts survived the pressure and won 3-2!

The series will continue on Thursday with the 7th and last match. The winner qualify for the Gagarin Cup finals where they will face Western Conference winners Dynamo Moscow who beat SKA St. Petersburg in six games!   

Series tied 3-3

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