A useful victory?

After the thrilling game won in semifinal in November by Renon with a comeback in last minutes and the winning goal, scored by Jason Williams with 40 seconds to play, the Italian champion and Kazakh Beybarys Atyrau are back on ice of Ritten Arena, both with ambitions to take the silver plate. Renon, lost Jason Williams, now at rival Nottingham Panthers, resigned Brad Cole for this Superfinals and sign a big name as Latvian Janis Sprukts trying to bring Continental Cup in Italy for the first time. Beybarys, in a good mood on Kazakhstan League with four consecutive victories, strengthened the roster with two Russian players, defender Kirill Gavrilychev and forward Vadim Mitryakov, today in the first line, both from Rubin Tyumen.

The game is lively already in the first minutes: on power play Beybarys open the score after six minutes with Albert Vishnyakov, well assisted by Maxim Korobov, but Renon quickly equalizes at 08:21 with Brad Cole, reactive to rebound a shot by Simon Kostner rebounded. Keeping the control of the game Ritten finds the second goal at 17:39 on powerplay: Thomas Spinell nets an assist from Fabian Ebner.

After a period controlled by Renon, the last 20 minutes are a Kazakh assault, with Italian defence always under pressure, even if goalie Patrick Killeen has just a couple of difficult saves. The constant pressure results unavoidably in the second goal of Beybarys, scored on power play at 53:42 by Aleksandr Zhurun, alone in front of Killeeen after a brilliant pass by Vishnyakov. Beybarys has another chance, as well as Renon, before the overtime where the best chance are for Janis Sprukts – his shot is deflected over the bar by Svoboda – and Victor Ahlstrom hitting the post. At shootouts Viktor Ahlstrom and Janis Sprukts score while Killeen saves the first on Vishnyakov and Malyushkin misses the net for the first victory of Renon, but without three points.

MVP: Albert Vishnyakov – Brad Cole

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