Eastern Conference Semifinals Day 1

21 Mar 2014 | Alan Ilijic

Both games go to overtime as Metallurg and Salavat Yulaev take the lead in the series.

Metallurg Magnitogorsk - Sibir Novosibirsk 3:2 OT (Metallurg lead series 1-0)

Number 1 seed from the regular season continue to march. With an overtime win today they now make it 3 in a row and 5 out of 6 in the offseason.

Sergei Mozyakin is finally starting to catch up on the form he left in the regular season. Scoring only his second playoff goal he buries the winner in overtime, at 66:29, of course on the assist from Jan Kovar. Those two were part of the other two goals Metallurg had scored in the game, the latter opening the scoring on powerplay at 6:43. Mozyakin's first playoff goal was another game-winner in overtime, at nearly the same time (63:15 against Admiral in Game 5 to lift them to the semis). It could be a sign for Metallurg, an important one they'll need in their offense.

Early in the third Danis Zaripov doubles the lead on the assist from Mozyakin (11) - Kovar (6) duo while it seemed they might have set their track to the win in this game.

Konstantin Alexeyev with his first and Ivan Lekomtsev with his second wouldn't agree and get the game back to where it was at the beginning in a span of just two minutes midway through the period.

Incredible Vasily Koshechkin continues keeping good score in the net with another huge game. 32/34 saves and 94.1 SVS% speak for itself.

Barys Astana - Salavat Yulaev Ufa 2:3 OT (Salavat lead series 1-0)

A sweep over Avtomobilist, though a tight one, couldn't have been satisfactory for the Kazakhs, neither the fans nor the team. It was a signal that they might be dealing with some problems going into the next round. It seems that the fact they had a lot of time to deal with it didn't help them.

Salavat goes for the upset on Day 1 of the Eastern semis with an overtime win over one of the best teams in the league. Salavat announced a big run with a 7-game win in the quarters over Torpedo and they might be ready for huge upsets.

Although the hosts snapped an early lead through Mike Lundin at 2:25, Salvat score a goal in each of the remaining periods and get in front as Dmitry Makarov at 33:21 and Alexe Kaigorodov at 42:11 turn the game around, the first on the powerplay. Barys delay their fall at 56:28 when Nikolai Antropov levels the score.

Nikita Filatov racks up the winner early in overtime, as early as 61:17, with his 5th overall game winning goal, second in the playoffs.

Salavat kept Vitaly Yeremeyev in net for Barys under 90% while their Andrei Vasilevsky had 94.6% on 35 shots.

Next games are scheduled for tomorrow, March 22nd.