Pre-season starts with tense home win!

15 August 2026

SKA made the perfect start to the 2026 summer campaign, tallying a 3:1 triumph in the first of two scheduled friendly matches against Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg in Saint Petersburg.

The affair was on a knife’s edge following the visitors’ equaliser in the early stages of the third period, but Rocco Grimaldi quickly reinstated our lead before two-goal performer Vasily Glotov sealed the deal with an empty-netter.

Glotov had initially broken the deadlock in the 17th minute of play, slotting home with opposing goalkeeper Vladimir Galkin caught out of position.

Following a goalless second period, Avtomobilist hauled themselves level through ex-SKA defenseman Ilya Karpukhin in the 46th minute.

Nonetheless, Grimaldi gave SKA the advantage again a little over two minutes later when calmly getting the better of Galkin after pouncing on a defensive error.

Glotov then sealed the deal into the empty net with a mere second remaining on the clock.

The two teams will meet again at the SKA Arena tomorrow at 17:00 local time.

Match protocol:

SKA – Avtomobilist – 3:1 (1:0, 0:0, 2:1)

Goals:

1:0 Glotov (Weissbach, Miromanov), 16.23

1:1 Karpukhin (Sprong, Clague), 45.29

2:1 Grimaldi, 47.38

3:1 Glotov (Weissbach, Atanasov), 59.59 EN

Goalkeepers: Pleshkov – Galkin

Shots: 58 – 53

Shots on target: 26 – 32