Avangard - SKA

Avangard - SKA - 2:3

3 February 2015

SKA made the lengthy trip to Omsk, Siberia, to take on Avangard in the Arena Omsk. Due to the upcoming Euro Hockey Tour plenty of changes were made to the line-up, as young forward Alexander Barabanov made the step up to the first line with Ilya Kovalchuk and Viktor Tikhonov. There were only four players included in the fourth line, while Nikita Bogdanov backed up Mikko Koskinen in net.

The first period begun with SKA seeing plenty of the puck, but at the same time finding very little space in which to get a shot on goal away. Against the run of play it was Avangard who broke the deadlock, as Igor Musatov charged in from the left flank and buried the puck under Mikko Koskinen. That didn’t put our players off though, and seconds after a powerplay expired the score became level. Vadim Shipachyov got his stick on to a dump into the slot, and by the right hand post Konstantin Barulin was beaten. The game was now fully under SKA’s control, and just four minutes before the buzzer Artemiy Panarin brilliantly found the second. He jinked in and around all of his opponents moving to the doorstep, and went top shelf glove side.

Those quick-fire goals did kick Avangard into life, and at the start of the second Mikko Koskinen had to make a heroic save. From point blank range he somehow kept the puck out with a combination of blocker and stick, and at the other end the team rewarded him. With a man’s advantage Yevgeni Dadonov was found between the circles, and he clinically found the net. That’s where the hosts found their inner adrenaline again, and with time ticking down in the period they got one back. The puck bounced all around the crease, and powering down to the right faceoff circle Vadim Khomitsky thumped it through traffic. 3:2 in SKA’s favour after 40 minutes.

It shaped up to be a very nervy final period, and Avangard got themselves set up deep in SKA’s zone time and time again. For the most part however the defence did an excellent job of snuffling out the danger, and it was indeed our team who came closest to scoring as Yevgeni Ketov hacked wide of the left corner from the crease. The hosts did pull their goaltender late on for the extra skater, but SKA calmly saw out the game to reign victorious in Omsk 3:2!

Match protocol:

Avangard – SKA – 2:3 (1:2, 1:1, 0:0)

Goals:

1:0 Musatov (Semyonov), 05.09

1:1 Shipachyov (Panarin), 13.08

1:2 Panarin, 16.05

1:3 Dadonov (Panarin, Shipachyov), 30.38

2:3 Khomitsky (Rasskazov, Nepryaev), 33.09

Goalkeepers: Barulin – Koskinen

Shots: 19 - 34

Penalty minutes: 4 – 4

Faceoffs: 30 - 39