Kunlun Red Star - SKA

Kunlun Red Star - SKA - 1:8

18 November 2017

SKA completed the Far Eastern KHL trip with a match against HC Kunlun Red Star in China. Head coach Oleg Znarok made a change to the line-up for this fixture, putting Vadim Shipachyov in the first line with Ilya Kovalchuk and Sergei Kalinin. Mikko Koskinen and Magnus Hellberg were the starting goaltenders.

The home side made the better start in Shanghai, as they called Mikko Koskinen into action when gifted with promising counterattacks. However, against the run of play, SKA made the breakthough. Alexander Barabanov was the scorer, brilliantly backhanding into the right corner. Buoyed by that goal, Nikolai Prokhorkin immediately doubled SKA's advantage when clean through. That goal forced Kunlun into pulling Magnus Hellberg in favour of Alexander Skrynnik, who used to play in the SKA system.

Unfortunately, Brandon Yip pounced on a poor SKA error to score on Mikko Koskinen at point blank range. Kunlun were pressing, but our players weren't in the mood to let the Chinese get back into the game. Ilya Kovalchuk caught Alexander Skrynnik cold with a superb wrister from the point, before Nikita Gusev swept the puck into the empty net after a Kunlun error. Kunlun head coach Mike Keenan put Magnus Hellberg back between the pipes, but it didn't have the desired effect. Ilya Kovalchuk slid the puck under the goalkeeper's pads on 36 minutes, making it 5:1 in SKA's favour.

In complete control of proceedings, SKA ran away with the game in the third period. Yegor Yakovlev netted the sixth goal, lashing a one timer high into the net on the left faceoff circle. Vladislav Gavrikov used a juicy rebound to score his first SKA marker, and Ilya Kovalchuk then sealed his hat trick with a thunderbolt. Mikko Koskinen made important saves, seeing SKA through to a huge 8:1 victory against Kunlun Red Star!

Match protocol:

Kunlun Red Star - SKA - 1:8 (0:2, 1:3, 0:3)

Goals:

0:1 Barabanov (Rykov, Kablukov), 15.02

0:2 Prokhorkin (Hersley, Gusev), 16.28

1:2 Yip (Makarov, Kulda), 21.54

1:3 Kovalchuk (Kalinin), 23.38

1:4 Gusev (Karpov), 24.42

1:5 Kovalchuk (Shipachyov, Rundblad), 35.33

1:6 Yakovlev (Gusev, Prokhorkin), 47.24

1:7 Gavrikov (Barabanov), 56.31

1:8 Kovalchuk (Plotnikov, Shipachyov), 57.13