SKA - Atlant

SKA - Atlant - 1:3

30 January 2015

It was the second home match in a row for SKA, as the team looked to get back to winnings ways after two defeats on the bounce to Salavat Yulaev Ufa and Slovan. Mikko Koskinen still kept his place in net, while forward Alexander Barabanov was handed a chance in the fourth line with defencemen Andrey Ermakov and Dmitry Yudin alongside him.

SKA began brilliantly, and it took just one minute and 39 seconds for the team to get on the board. With a man's advantage Vadim Shipachyov dished to Artemiy Panarin on the left faceoff circle, and the latter was as clinical as can be. That contrived to only kick Atlant into action though, and they got back on terms when Nikita Soshnikov one on one went top shelf on Mikko Koskinen. 1:1 after 20.

All the momentum was with Atlant now, and SKA simply couldn't get anything going at all in the attacking zone. It seemed only a matter of time before they tallied up their second, and that was indeed the case. Vyacheslav Lyshchenko took aim from the right hand boards, and somehow the goalkeeper let it roll over his pads and into the net. The puck barely left SKA's zone for the remainder of the period, and after Vyacheslav Kozlov had almost smashed the crossbar in half, Mikko Koskinen made up for his earlier error with an amazing glove save with an Atlant forward clean through against him.

Our team needed to take up the initiative moving on into the third period, but again it was Atlant who managed to hit the target. On a three on two Yevgeni Bodrov made a beautiful combination play with Albert Yarullin, and the latter hit the jackpot from the doorstep. That finally kicked SKA into life, and chance after chance arrived. Despite Mikko Koskinen getting pulled for the extra skater late on it didn't make any difference through, as Atlant held on to defeat SKA 3:1 in Saint Petersburg.

Match protocol:

SKA - Atlant - 1:3 (1:1, 0:1, 0:1)

Goals:

1:0 Panarin (Dadonov, Shipachyov), 01.39

1:1 Soshnikov (Babchuk), 08.31

1:2 Leshchenko (Voronin), 22.20

1:3 Yarullin (Bodrov), 43.10

Goalkeepers: Koskinen - Engren

Shots: 33 - 27

Penalty minutes: 27 - 18

Faceoffs: 40 - 21

Hits: 23 - 18