Lada - SKA

Lada - SKA - 0:5

7 January 2018

SKA completed this KHL away series with a fixture against HC Lada in Tolyatti. Coming into this match, our club had never lost to Lada in the league. Mikko Koskinen and Alexander Lazushin were the starting goaltenders.

Despite winning 6:2 against Traktor on Friday, SKA made a slow start in Tolyatti. Mikko Koskinen was a busy man, pulling off 12 important saves during the first period. Our goalkeeper denied Lada with some simply brilliant stops, as our players failed to warm into proceedings. Vasily Streltsov should have opened the scoring for Lada, but he could only find Mikko Koskinen's glove at point blank range.

Thankfully, SKA took charge in the second stanza. Just 35 seconds into the period, Vyacheslav Voynov thumped a slap shot into the net when on the powerplay. That goal gave SKA a real boost, with the team going on to dominate the frame. Patrick Thoresen grabbed a deserved second goal on another man advantage, scoring after his initial shot was stopped by Lada goalkeeper Alexander Lazushin. 2:0 in SKA's favour after 40 minutes.

Ilya Kovalchuk completed a flowing play nine seconds after the restart for the third period, making it 3:0. In control of the match, SKA went on to rip Lada's sorry defence apart. Maxim Karpov was the next to join the party, tipping beyond Alexander Lazushin on the slot. Pavel Datsyuk rounded matters off with a superb powerplay marker, sealing SKA's 5:0 victory against Lada Tolyatti!

Match protocol:

Lada - SKA - 0:5 (0:0, 0:2, 0:3)

Goals:

0:1 Voynov (Datsyuk, Kovalchuk), 20.35

0:2 Thoresen (Datsyuk, Kalinin), 29.12

0:3 Kovalchuk (Datsyuk, Thoresen), 40.09

0:4 Karpov (Kablukov), 46.30

0:5 Datsyuk (Kovalchuk, Thoresen), 56.38

Goalkeepers: Lazushin - Koskinen

Shots on target: 20 - 27

Faceoffs: 31 - 23

Hits: 19 - 11