Slovan - SKA

Slovan - SKA - 1:6

26 December 2014

Today on the 26^th of December, SKA played its final away match of this year against HC Slovan Bratislava. Ilya Ezhov was installed as Mikko Koskinen’s backup after re-signing from HC Lada Togliatti, and forward Artemiy Panarin came back into the side having recovered from his injury which kept him on the sidelines for a while.

The pace was frenetic immediately, as the puck flew from one end to another without many pauses. Artemiy Panarin forced the home netminder to flash leather brilliantly from range, whereas our Mikko Koskinen was mostly a spectator. The opening goal looked like only a matter of time before it came, and arrive it did – Yevgeni Ketov powered down the right flank, cut back sharply, and wristed hard into the net. That broke something for Slovan, and our team wasn’t in a forgiving mood. Alexander Barabanov scored an almost identical goal, as he skated around from behind the net and fired past the goalkeeper’s glove. Goaltender David LeNeveu was then pulled for Jaroslav Janus as Slovan could feel the game slipping away fast, although that didn’t make any difference as Tony Martensson sneaked the puck over the line from the doorstep.

Slovan were simply all over the place, and not much changed in the second. All the pressure was coming at one end, and it didn’t take long for the fourth goal to crash in.

Anton Burdasov went on an amazing skate around the goal, pulled to the right faceoff circle, and lashed the puck in with feeling. Anton then grabbed a double for himself, as on a two on one he took up Ilya Kablukov’s feed to the high slot and took his chance with aplomb. A couple of late powerplays allowed to Slovan to give their fans something to feel positive about, however Mikko Koskinen was error free making some sharp stops from point blank range.

Despite there not being any doubt about the final result tempers raised somewhat in the third period, with Slovan getting penalties time and time again as their discipline went. Eventually SKA were gifted a five on three powerplay, and there was no chance of that being wasted – Maxim Chudinov was teed up at the blue line, and he clattered his slap shot over Jaroslav Janus’ flailing glove. Mikko Koskinen did have his shutout taken away from him however, as with slightly under two minutes remaining Milan Bartovic hit the target when one on one. It didn’t take the shine of a superb performance though, as SKA cruised to a 6:1 triumph in Bratislava!

Match protocol:

Slovan – SKA – 1:6 (0:3, 0:2, 1:1)

Goals:

0:1 Ketov (Burdasov, Kadeikin), 07.40

0:2 Barabanov (Burdasov), 08.39

0:3 Martensson (Thoresen, Ericsson), 19.31

0:4 Burdasov (Kablukov, Barabanov), 25.06

0:5 Burdasov (Kablukov), 28.12

0:6 Chudinov (Belov), 49.59

1:6 Bartovic (Barker), 58.22

Goalkeepers: LeNeveu (Janus) – Koskinen

Shots: 28 – 41