At the point of no return

29 March 2026

SKA came up short in a crunch fourth match against CSKA Moscow in the first round of the 2025/2026 KHL Gagarin Cup playoffs, conceding an avoidable 2:4 setback to consequently fall 1-3 down in the series.

After Sergei Sapego had cut the deficit in half in the early stages of the third frame, our players created a handful of golden opportunities to force overtime, but it was too little, too late as CSKA professionally saw it out.

In stark contrast to Friday, this time CSKA came flying out of the blocks with real intent.

Their first goal arrived within the maiden seven minutes.

Skating clean through as a consequence of a defensive mix-up, Prokhor Poltapov expertly wristed between Sergei Ivanov’s pads.

The visitors were firmly on the front foot throughout the first period, chucking the puck towards the slot at any given opportunity and cutting to dangerous positions with alarming regularity.

Nevertheless, SKA found an equaliser against the run of play.

Marat Khairullin initially blasted wide of the gaping net, but Andrei Pedan lashed the rebound home with Dmitry Gamzin out of position.

Sergei Ivanov then pulled off a stunning save in the subsequent shift, somehow shutting the door on Dmitry Buchelnikov when darting across to his right post in time.

SKA did make an improvement in terms of their attacking play in the second period. However, more defensive errors rendered their efforts null and void.

The quick Denis Guryanov scored almost a carbon-copy of CSKA’s opener with five minutes played in the stanza, taking advantage of Pedan’s broken stick to power through 1-on-1 and cooly get the better of Ivanov.

Matters soon went from bad to worse.

And it was that man Guryanov again, who whipped into the far corner from the left circle while playing 4-on-4.

Buoyed by those pair of markers, CSKA really were bossing the play now, swinging the puck across the attacking zone with little resistance and protecting possession near Ivanov’s net. KHL playoff debutant Ignat Lutfullin was presented with one glorious opportunity to get SKA back to within one, poking the puck against Gamzin’s left pad having escaped the visitors’ defence.

SKA did, however, halve CSKA’s lead in the 43^rd minute.

When collecting possession at the point, Sapego arrowed a rising wrister over the unsighted Gamzin.

That goal sparked life into SKA.

Competing with urgency, SKA were finally finding holes in the CSKA defence. But, with Yegor Savikov and Rocco Grimaldi – the latter denied by a beautiful flash of leather by Gamzin – failing to convert their chances at point-blank range, the Muscovites held on and iced it through Vitaly Abramov’s empty-netter.

Game five is scheduled to take place in Moscow on Tuesday. Puck-drop is scheduled for 19:30 local time.

Match protocol:

SKA – CSKA – 2:4 (1:1, 0:2, 1:1)

Goals:

0:1 Poltapov (Okhotyuk, Sorkin), 06.47

1:1 Pedan (Khairullin, Plotnikov), 15.49

1:2 Guryanov, 24.26

1:3 Guryanov (Kovalenko), 33.08

2:3 Sapego (Romanov, Phillips), 42.25

2:4 Abramov, 58.30 EN

Goalkeepers: Ivanov – Gamzin

Shots: 55 – 58