Game two. SKA – Avtomobilist

Game two. SKA – Avtomobilist – 1:3

19 March 2024

SKA dropped a disappointing defeat in game two against Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg at home, losing 1:3 in Saint Petersburg to consequently fall 0-2 down in the quarter-finals of the 2023/2024 KHL Gagarin Cup playoffs.

In comparison to Sunday, this time SKA started with lots more energy and pace.

Our early pressure resulted in a flurry of early opportunities. The in-form Evgeny Alikin was a busy man in the Avtomobilist net throughout the opening stages, making challenging saves with the likes of Artyom Sergeev, Sergei Tolchinsky and Marat Khairullin taking aim from promising positions.

Avtomobilist predictably continued using their tactic of waiting patiently for counter-attacks. Unfortunately, our players quite obviously hadn’t learnt their lesson from game one, as they repeated the unwanted trick of committing sloppy defensive mistakes.

Stepan Khripunov struck the crossbar with a deflected effort from deep. The same player then smashed the left post with a firm wrister shorthanded, before Nikita Serebryakov was forced into a superb stop to deny a combination of Alexei Makeev and Anatoly Golyshev at point-blank range.

Nevertheless, Avtomobilist did punish SKA for their defensive woes in the second stanza.

Former SKA forward Alexei Byvaltsev broke the deadlock shorthanded in the 26^th minute, speeding clean through after another dreadful home error and giving Serebryakov no chance.

From then on in, the fired-up Ural-based organisation dominated the entirety of the period.

Matters soon went from bad to worse for us.

Following a series of needless penalties, Stephane Da Costa grabbed Avtomobilist’s second while competing on a 5-on-3 powerplay, getting the better of Serebryakov with an unstoppable wrist shot.

Predictably, SKA did make a major improvement with their backs to the wall in the third period.

Not long after Tolchinsky had missed a glorious opportunity when clean through, Vasily Glotov provided SKA with a well-needed lifeline, bundling the loose puck over the line from a tight angle to the right of the slot. Alikin just wasn’t able to trap it inside his glove.

SKA were gradually generating more attacking traction. However, with a little over four minutes remaining on the clock, Avtomobilist struck a killer blow when pouncing on another fatal SKA defensive mix-up.

1-on-1 with Serebryakov, Avtomobilist forward Khripunov atoned for his previous misses as he ruthlessly snapped the puck between the pads.

With desperation increasing, our coaches pulled Serebryakov for the extra skater for the concluding three minutes, but to no avail as Avtomobilist held on for dear life.

The third match of the series is scheduled to take place in Yekaterinburg on Thursday. Puck-drop is scheduled for 17:00 Moscow time.

Match protocol:

SKA – Avtomobilist – 1:3 (0:0, 0:2, 1:1)

Goals:

0:1 Byvaltsev (Osipov), 25.36 SHG

0:2 Da Costa (Valk), 34.59 PPG

1:2 Glotov (Khairullin, Sergeev), 44.50

1:3 Khripunov (Obidin), 55.37

Goalkeepers: Serebryakov – Alikin

Shots: 65 – 50

Shots on target: 34 – 31

Faceoffs: 37 – 23