SKA – Amur

SKA – Amur – 6:2

17 January 2024

SKA emphatically coped with the challenge posed by playoff-chasers Amur Khabarovsk at the Ice Palace in the 2023/2024 KHL regular season, coasting to a confident 6:2 triumph.

Our team quickly took a firm grip of proceedings.

Alexander Nikishin opened the scoring in the fourth minute, calmly wristing into the left corner when unmarked between the circles. We didn’t have to wait long for our second either, as Pavel Dedunov gleefully gobbled up the rebound exactly two minutes later after Sergei Tolchinsky’s attempt had been pushed aside by Igor Bobkov.

That did indeed signal the end of the hapless Bobkov’s night, with the tall 2010 World Junior Championship winner being pulled in favour of Dmitry Lozebnikov.

Moments after Lozebnikov had been introduced, Artyom Zemchyonok almost tallied our third, whacking against the left post with the goaltender panicking.

Amur were presented with a golden opportunity to get themselves back in the game midway through the opening stanza. However, after pouncing on a wayward pass from Svyatoslav Grebenshchikov, the clean-through Jan Drozg failed to unleash a clean shot when trying to beat Nikita Serebryakov for skill.

The Khabarovsk-outfit did cut our lead in half in the first minute of the second stanza.

With SKA quite clearly still resting in the dressing room, Vladislav Barulin completed a lengthy shift inside our zone with a backhander which snuck under Serebryakov’s blocker.

Amur had come flying out of the blocks for the frame. In stark contrast to their sleepy first-period effort, the visiting team were beginning to pile the pressure on SKA, pinning our players inside their zone and creating a series of excellent chances.

To our relief, we netted our all-important third in the 25th minute.

Lozebnikov dealt with Nikita Kamalov’s slap shot, but the ensuing rebound was gleefully backhanded home by the unchallenged Stepan Starkov.

To their credit, that goal didn’t appear to deter Amur, but they then contrived to concede a fourth when competing on the powerplay thanks to a dreadful mistake.

When gathering a misplaced Khabarovsk pass on the right flank, Zemchyonok had no trouble in wristing firmly beyond an understandably frustrated Lozebnikov who had previously pulled off a pair of stunning saves against Arseniy Gritsyuk.

Amur refused to give in, though, starting the third period on the front foot.

Their second goal arrived in the fourth minute of the frame. Having noticed that Serebryakov’s view was heavily impeded, Yefim Gurkin decided to chuck the puck through a sea of bodies, and he struck gold with his shot whistling past our goalkeeper.

Our coaches decided to challenge the goal for goaltender interference, but the referees required all of a minute to determine that it was a clean marker.

Buoyed by that goal, Amur started to compete with aggressiveness and urgency, notably wasting a handful of great chances when competing on their subsequent PP which was awarded as a result of SKA’s unsuccessful coach’s challenge.

Nevertheless, after Serebryakov had kept them at bay with top saves at close range, SKA went on to well and truly put the game to bed with two further goals.

Marat Khairullin beautifully tipped Vasily Glotov's slap pass over Lozebnikov’s blocker, before Sergei Sapego capitalised on a goalmouth scramble.

In the concluding second, Tolchinsky thought that he had scored our seventh, but the puck had crossed the line after the buzzer had sounded.

SKA will now prepare to host Kunlun Red Star in Saint Petersburg on Friday. Puck-drop is scheduled for 19:30 local time.

Match protocol:

SKA – Amur – 6:2 (2:0, 2:1, 2:1)

Goals:

1:0 Nikishin (Gritsyuk, Rendulic), 03.31

2:0 Dedunov (Tolchinsky), 05.31

2:1 Barulin (Bocharov, Korshkov), 20.41

3:1 Starkov (Kamalov, Glotov), 24.33

4:1 Zemchyonok, 37.13 SHG

4:2 Gurkin (Mishchenko, Drozg), 43.47