SKA - Dynamo Moscow - 3:2 OT. Game Five

18 March 2015

SKA received their first chance to kill off Dynamo Moscow in the fifth game of this KHL Gagarin Cup second round series. Head coach Vyacheslav Bykov made a few changes to the line-up, with the injured Nikolai Belov being replaced by Yury Alexandrov and Andrey Ermakov returning to SKA-1946. For Dynamo Alexander Sharychenkov was in net, in place of Alexander Lazushin who is also out of action.

It was a simply perfect start inside the Saint Petersburg Ice Palace, as just 37 seconds in our team took the lead. Dynamo coughed up the puck deep inside their own zone, Ilya Kovalchuk fed Vadim Shipachyov to the right of the slot, and all alone the latter one timed it home. That put Dynamo immediately on the back foot, and they were lucky not to concede again. On the powerplay Ilya Kovalchuk hammered wide glove side, Patrick Thoresen poked over the bar, and a number of dangerous dumps into the slot were beaten away by the goaltender. As the period went on though SKA handed Dynamo the initiative, and they created a few promising openings. The best of which saw Maxim Karpov wind up from the right faceoff circle, and with Mikko Koskinen out of position he could only thrash well off target.

The second saw Dynamo hand back the initiative to SKA, and our team had so many chances to hit the net again. Roman Rukavishnikov wound up from the left wing, and he smacked the far post with the goalkeeper helpless. Dmitriy Kalinin then slapped over from the doorstep, and Anton Belov from an identical position couldn’t raise his shot enough, Our players were laying siege to Dynamo’s net, and shots from an all manner of positions called the away netminder into action. The finishing touch was lacking though, and a few goalmouth scrambles towards the end of the frame brought about a few excellent reactions stops from Mikko Koskinen.

Dynamo began the third frame on the powerplay, and they came so close to making it a tied game. The puck bobbled about SKA’s crease, and from point blank range Konstantin Gorovikov hit the right post with an empty net to aim at. They weren’t going to let SKA off a second time though, and with a player extra Maxim Karpov forced it over the line. While that could have broken our team, it did the exact opposite. In the following attack the puck fell to Anton Belov between the circles, and he made it count. SKA shut up shop after that, and were hit for such cautiousness. Dynamo broke away down the right, the puck was thrown to the far post, and the unmarked Sergey Soin beat Mikko Koskinen to send it into overtime.

It promised to be one of the most nervy overtime periods in the club’s history, as it was the perfect time to finally see off the challenge of Dynamo. Vadim Shipachyov couldn’t lift the puck high enough when open, and then there was a major scare. Dynamo broke away, Denis Kokarev at the far left post fired, and after a stunning Mikko Koskinen save the puck was swept off the line. The visitors then took a penalty for having too many men on the ice, and it proved to completely ruin their season. As those two minutes were finishing Artemiy Panarin combined brilliantly with Vadim Shipachyov, and Yevgeni Dadonov was handed an open corner of the net to slot into! 3:2 today and 4:1 in the series overall, and SKA move on to the Conference Finals in truly dramatic style!

Match protocol:

SKA – Dynamo Moscow – 3:2 OT (1:0, 0:0, 1:2, 1:0)

Goals:

1:0 Shipachyov (Cervenka, Kovalchuk), 00.37

1:1 Karpov (Osipov, Kokarev), 42.49

2:1 A Belov (Tikhonov, Thoresen), 43.09

2:2 Soin (Robinson, Dugin), 52.16

3:2 Dadonov (Shipachyov, Panarin), 69.31

Goalkeepers: Koskinen - Sharychenkov

Shots: 32 – 36

Penalty minutes: 6 – 8

Faceoffs: 26 – 43