SKA to Play in Puchkov Tournament Finals After Defeating Canada

SKA St. Petersburg will look to improve on their Sochi Hockey Open final performance from a week ago by playing in the Nikolai Puchkov final on Thursday following a 3-0 shutout over Team Canada.

It took until the 19:53 mark of the second period for either team to find the score sheet. Just seconds after Canada killed off the first penalty of a 5-on-3, Ben Scrivens went on to slash Sergei Shirokov, putting Canada down two-men once again. 

Canada's penalty issues hurt them against Russia at the Sochi Hockey Open last week, and it didn't improve their situation on Wednesday. With seven seconds to go, Anton Belov received a pass from the corner and sent it out to defensive partner Patrik Hersely. Hersley's shot from the blue line beat a screened Scrivens and landed in the back of the net, giving Canada the 1-0 lead late in the middle frame.

A great cycle by SKA at 9:20 in the third period saw the Russian squad take the 2-0 lead. This time, Nikita Gusev would double up his team's lead after his point shot was tipped by Canadian Carlo Colaiacovo in front of the net, beating Scrivens' right arm to give SKA a lead they'd never surrender following an empty netter by Viktor Tikhonov.

SKA will play in their second straight tournament championship in as many weeks when they face Severstal Cherepovets in the gold medal game on Thursday. Canada will meet up with Jokerit Helsinki in the bronze medal game, a club Canada beat 5-2 at the 2014 Spengler Cup.

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