Thoresen sends SKA to the finals

Who could believe a week ago that SKA St. Petersburg would qualify for the Gagarin Cup finals? CSKA Moscow had won the first three games of the semi final series. But SKA hadn't given up the hope to do what nobody else in the history of KHL had done - turn 0-3 to 4-3 in a playoff series. Game four (4-1) and game five (6-2) was won quite comfortably, but game six and seven were really close. And both times with the Norwegian Patrick Thoresen as game-winner for the St. Petersburg  team. In game five he scored 2-1 at 09:01 of the overtime. In tonight's game he got the winning 3-2 goal at 50:41 when he deflected a shot by Anton Belov past Kevin Lalande.

SKA took a 2-0 lead in this game after goals by Ilya Kovalchuk in the first period and Yevgeny Dadonov in the second. But CSKA scored to quick goals towards the end of period two to tie it. Alexander Radulov and Stephane Da Costa scored for the home team. In the third period it took a deflection from Thoresen to break the deadlock. In the final minute when CSKA chased an equalizer Stephane Da Costa got sent off for a high stick and SKA could kill the time to advance t the finals against Ak Bars Kazan.

For the regular season winner CSKA the season is now over.

Tweets by @eurohockey