Dynamo take the lead in Gagarin Cup finals

07 Apr 2013 | Dennis Mende

With a during most past of the game convincing performance hosts Dynamo Moscow won the series opener of this year's Gagarin Cup finals against Traktor Chelyabinsk.

Gagarin Cup finals, day 1

Dynamo Moscow (W3) - Traktor Chelyabinsk (E3) 2-1 (1-0, 1-0, 0-1)

Both teams started very aggressively into this series but the hosts Dynamo soon took over the initiative and scored the 1-0 through Alexei Tsvetkov at 05:06. Traktor had a power play - the first of the match - but instead of creating a chance themselves they had to see how Denis Kokarev came from the right wing to deke out Traktor goalie Michael Garnett. The Canadian stopped the first try with a spectacular pad save but he had no chance when Tsvetkov used the rebound from short distance.

In the following time Dynamo did not more than necessary while Traktor had huge problems to get past the strong defense of their opponents. One of the few really dangerous situations in the middle period ended with the 2-0 for the hosts when a Traktor defender lost the puck next to his own net and Sergei Soin had no problems at all to use the following cross-pass to score from short distance with a one-timer.

The third period began with another Traktor power play as Sergei Soin had received a cross-checking penalty just before the second intermission. This time the guests did a far better job and their superstar Evgeny Kuznetsov fired a one-timer from the right circle into the right top corner to make it 2-1 with a real beauty! In the following minutes there were several big scoring opportunities on both sides, including break aways for Nichushkin (Traktor) and Kokarev (Dynamo) but none of the teams could use them. In the last half minute of regulation Traktor tried it wihout their goalie but with an additional attacker but the result didn't change anymore.

The series will continue already tomorrow when game #2 takes place again in Moscow.

Dynamo lead 1-0 in the series