Surprise home setback to Sochi

16 January 2026

SKA suffered a surprise home setback on Friday evening, coming up short against Sochi by a slender score of 1:2 at the Ice Palace.

Our players were heavy favourites as they looked to avenge their recent defeat in Sochi, but they simply couldn't break the stubborn visitors down despite registering 42 shots on target.

Noel Hoefenmayer opened the scoring for the away side midway through the first period, stealing possession from Andrei Loktionov and beating Sergei Ivanov at the second attempt.

The second stanza saw SKA apply rapidly increasing pressure on Sochi, creating several clear opportunities.

However, after failing to capitalise on those chances, our team contrived to concede a cheap second goal in the dying seconds of the period, as familiar face Nikolai Polyakov's wrister was just too hot for Ivanov to handle.

Marat Khairullin finally got SKA on the board in the 49th minute of play, giving a flowing passing play the perfect finish at point-blank range.

That goal looked to have given SKA the required impetus to go on and take the game by the scruff of the neck. But, to our dismay, Sochi defended solidly for the remainder of proceedings and managed to see the game out successfully.

SKA will now prepare to host Dinamo Minsk in Saint Petersburg on Monday. Puck-drop is scheduled for 19:30 local time.

Match protocol:

SKA - Sochi - 1:2 (0:1, 0:1, 1:0)

Goals:

0:1 Hoefenmayer, 09.21

0:2 N. Polyakov (Dedunov, Bashkirov), 39.58

1:2 Khairullin (M. Polyakov, Vorobyov), 48.39

Goalkeepers: Ivanov - Khomchenko

Shots: 71 - 39

Shots on target: 42 - 24

Faceoffs: 24 - 28

Blocked shots: 5 - 15