Dinamo Minsk - SKA

Dinamo Minsk - SKA - 5:4

3 January 2017

SKA travelled to Minsk for a KHL away match with HC Dinamo. Head coach Oleg Znarok made a couple of changes in comparison with the game against Lokomotiv, instating Steve Moses into the third line and Mikko Koskinen in net. Ben Scrivens was Dinamo's starting goaltender.

In front of a sold out Minsk Arena, Dinamo, a team which had won five on the bounce, came out hard. Unfortunately, their early pressure led up to an opening goal. SKA committed a poor turnover, Rob Klinkhammer charged down the left wing, fed Fredrik Pettersson on the slot and the latter did the rest. Buoyed by that marker, Dinamo continued to hold the initiative. Taken aback, our players struggled to get anything going, relying on Mikko Koskinen to keep them in it with some top saves. However, as the period came to a close, it looked as though SKA had equalised. Evgeny Dadonov clinically finished, but after video review, the play was shown to have been offside.

The Belarusian hosts doubled their money at the start of the second stanza, as Aaron Palushaj tapped the loose puck over the line. All over the place, SKA were being ripped apart by Dinamo's potent attack, promptly conceding a third goal - unmarked on the left faceoff circle, Fredrik Pettersson lashed his effort into the far right corner. Just as it seemed it couldn't get worse, it did - Andrei Stepanov stabbed home a fourth Dinamo goal, before Sergei Drozd slid his wrister under Mikko Koskinen for a 5:0 Dinamo lead. The Minsk Arena simply couldn't believe what it was witnessing.

Nevertheless, teams should know better than to count SKA out. Ilya Kovalchuk gave our team a glimmer of hope, launching a rocket past Ben Scrivens at the end of the second stanza. Drawing confidence from that goal, SKA suddenly turned up to the party, taking the game by the scruff of its neck. Pavel Datsyuk displayed a bit of his magic on the 43 minute mark, beautifully firing over the blocker. Intent on making another heroic comeback, SKA incredibly netted a further two goals - Evgeny Dadonov scored the third after splitting the Dinamo defence, and Yegor Yakovlev's feed across the slot was deflected into his own net by a Dinamo defenseman. 5:4 with seven minutes to play!

Sergei Plotnikov had an ideal chance to make it a tied game, but, somehow, he failed to beat Ben Scrivens at point blank range. Sadly, that proved to be SKA's last chance. 4:5 today, the team will now travel to Finland for a match against HC Jokerit.

Match protocol:

Dinamo Minsk - SKA - 5:4 (1:0, 4:1, 0:3)

Goals:

1:0 Pettersson (Klinkhammer), 05.24

2:0 Palushaj (Kitarov, Graborenko), 21.56

3:0 Pettersson (Palushaj), 25.36

4:0 Stepanov, 32.26

5:0 Drozd (Kulakov), 33.32

5:1 Kovalchuk (Dadonov, Shipachyov), 38.35

5:2 Datsyuk (Rukavishnikov), 43.04

5:3 Dadonov (Shipachyov), 49.32

5:4 Yakovlev (Hersley, Shipachyov), 53.00