SKA – Dinamo Minsk

SKA – Dinamo Minsk – 3:2 OT

11 October 2022

In a thrilling battle, SKA outlasted Dinamo Minsk at the Ice Palace in the 2022/2023 KHL regular season, earning a pulsating 3:2 victory in overtime.

The entertaining tempo was immediately set in the first period.

Alexander Volkov gave SKA the lead in the sixth minute, whipping an unstoppable wrister high over Konstantin Shostak’s glove. However, just a matter of 66 seconds later, Minsk equalised through Pavel Varfolomeev’s snappy wrist shot from the high slot. SKA certainly didn’t help themselves for that goal, displaying poor defending which allowed the Dinamo forward to cut to a shooting position.

Although they were pretty open in defence, the visitors were very dangerous in the attacking zone. Shorthanded, the right post came to SKA’s rescue, and Alexander Samonov pulled off a smart save to shut the door on Nick Merkley at point-blank range. This marked Samonov’s maiden appearance since recovering from an injury which he had sustained in early September.

Overall, SKA were still competing on the front foot. Marat Khairullin, Vladislav Tsitsyura and Daniil Pylenkov all wasted excellent chances at close range, with our players managing to create quite a few clear shooting lanes in the opposing zone.

Our team continued competing on the front foot in the second stanza.

Nevertheless, in comparison to the first period, this time it was more difficult for SKA to carve out clear scoring chances. The in-form Volkov came close with a clattering slap shot from the left wing, as the puck whizzed past the far post with Shostak seemingly already beaten.

Not long before that chance, Zakhar Bardakov had created a great opportunity, sending the puck across goal with an intelligent pass without anyone being able to make that decisive touch.

Minsk went on to take their first lead of the day on the powerplay in the 36^th minute. Skating towards the net on the right, John Gilmour passed the puck to the doorstep, and it took an awkward deflection off a SKA skate to beat Samonov.

Naturally, given the score, SKA started the third period with real intent.

To our delight, we didn’t have to wait too long for the equalising goal. At the blue line, Igor Ozhiganov had time to pick his spot, unleashing a huge slap shot which flew beyond Shostak.

Buoyed by that goal, SKA went on to spend the vast majority of the stanza in the attacking zone. Unfortunately, though, another thoroughly disappointing performance on the powerplay was letting the hosts down. In the third frame, two powerplays at important times came and went for SKA, with our team really struggling to just keep the puck inside the attacking zone.

Overtime was indeed required. And, thankfully for us, it fell our way.

Vasily Glotov ended a high-quality duel in our favour, catching Shostak cold with an incredible laser shot from the right.

SKA will now prepare to compete against Lokomotiv in Yaroslavl on Thursday. Puck-drop is scheduled for 19:30 local time.

Match protocol:

SKA – Dinamo Minsk – 3:2 OT (1:1, 0:1, 1:0, 1:0)

Goals:

1:0 Volkov (Bardakov, Pylenkov), 05.55

1:1 Varfolomeev (Spooner, Emelin), 07.01

1:2 Gilmour (Spooner, Varfolomeev), 35.55 PPG

2:2 Ozhiganov (Galimov, Nikishin), 42.52

3:2 Glotov (Zhafyarov), 61.44

Goalkeepers: Samonov – Shostak