The final series of the playoffs of the KHL Western Conference did not start very well for SKA.
In the first match at home, the Petersburgers lost to their principal rival CSKA - 1:3, having conceded two goals in the end.
Muscovites won the ninth consecutive victory in the playoffs and strengthened the status of the opposition favorite.
In the second meeting, the wards of Roman Rotenberg had to take revenge from the nose.
Otherwise, they risked being in an extremely difficult position, because the next two games will be held in the capital.
At the same time, the hosts' coaching staff, after an offensive misfire, did not make serious changes in the composition and limited themselves to rearrangements in the fourth link.
Evgeny Timkin and Artyom Shvets-Rogovoy were not included in the application.
Their places were taken by Vladislav Tsitsyura and Valentin Zykov, who had previously played only one game in the current Gagarin Cup.
Sergei Fedorov managed the only castling.
One young hockey player Semyon Pankratov was replaced by another - 21-year-old Matvey Guskov.
At the last frontier, Lars Johansson and Ivan Fedotov again settled down.
The match began with a real "cold shower" for the hosts.
They took to the ice with great desire and immediately rushed forward, but missed in the first attack.
CSKA perfectly caught the opponent at the exit from the zone.
Andrey Svetlakov intercepted an unsuccessful pass and made a throw.
Johansson coped with it with difficulty, but could not do anything with the finishing off of Alexander Popov, who sent the projectile into the net from a zero angle on the fly.
The 41-year-old striker can already be called one of the main characters of the series, because he scored the winning goal in the first game.
Having missed, the Petersburgers were forced to go forward.
However, the Muscovites, who agreed to act as the second number, defended themselves reliably and did not leave free space in the central zone.
Rotenberg's wards had to seek their fortune from a long distance or from the sides, and Fedotov calmly coped with such threats.
And soon CSKA earned the majority, but failed to realize it.
In the second half of the period, the advantage of SKA became even more tangible, and according to the results of the game segment, the hosts outnumbered the opponent four times in terms of the number of shots on target - 16:4.
Hockey players sought to saturate the guests' patch in order to substitute the stick in a timely manner and disorient the goalkeeper.
A couple of times we managed to organize good lunges at speed.
For example, Danila Moiseev ran almost one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but missed the target.
However, Fedorov's team also responded with dangerous counterattacks.
In one of the episodes, Stepan Falkovsky, only flattened on the ice, intercepted a dangerous transmission.
If not for the Belarusian defender, the Muscovites could run away together on a date with Johansson.
At the junction of periods, Vladislav Provolnev decided to complicate the life of his team, who received two removals: first for tripping, and then for holding with a stick.
At this moment, the guests probably had an unpleasant deja vu, because in the previous match Andrey Kuzmenko converted the majority and equalized the score immediately after the break.
This time, the Moscow army fought back quite calmly.
Fedotov had to enter the game only after throwing Oscar Fantenberg right in the center.
However, in full squads, the hosts still excelled, and once again Kuzmenko was in the spotlight.
Having received the puck behind the gates of others, he left the defenders with tricks and gave an excellent transfer to Falkovsky.
And he carefully sent the puck into the far nine and scored the third goal in the playoffs.
His assistant scored the 13th point in the "goal + pass" system (7 + 6) and broke into the leaders of the race of scorers of the tournament.
Having missed, CSKA briefly moved the game away from their goal and had some good positional attacks.
On top of all the troubles, the Petersburgers for some time lost Igor Ozhiganov, who courageously took a powerful throw on the shin and, limping, went to the locker room.
Rotenberg was left with five defenders.
But soon SKA again pressed the capital's team to the gate and began to create one dangerous moment after another.
For the time being, the guests were rescued by Fedotov, who made incredible saves.
For example, in one of the episodes, in a matter of moments, he managed to move to the near corner in a matter of moments and fend off Mikko Lehtonen's shot at close range.
It was not possible literally from a meter to beat the goalkeeper and Moiseev.
It is all the more offensive that Ivan eventually missed an extremely curious puck a little more than a minute before the break.
Nikita Gusev, seeing that the goalkeeper rolled away from the bar, made a shot from a negative angle, and the puck ricocheted from his ammunition into the net.
Moreover, an assist was given by Ozhiganov, who returned to the ice shortly before.
In the fact that it was Gusev who struck Fedotov, one can see some higher justice, because the striker played the 500th match in the KHL.
As a gift for the anniversary, he managed to present himself and the team with the most important goal.
In the final period, the guests were forced to go forward.
With their return to the ice, they immediately unleashed a flurry of attacks on the gates of Johansson.
And soon came the decisive segment of the meeting.
Violations of the rules alternately allowed Zykov and Zakhar Bardakov.
CSKA was in a double majority for 98 seconds.
This opportunity had to be used, but the Muscovites failed to recoup.
Moreover, it cannot be said that Petersburgers experienced huge problems.
They calmly defended even the three of them.
Matt Robinson's stick was completely broken, and he had to finish the episode without it.
After that, Muscovites seemed to have lost hope.
By inertia, they continued to push and throw, but it seemed that they themselves did not believe in the possibility of a comeback.
Yes, and they did not have 100% moments.
I remember only a dangerous throw into the far nine by Darren Dietz.
The puck flew a few millimeters from the cross.
But SKA was closer to widening the gap in the score.
The Rotenberg team also had a chance to play in a five-on-three format.
First, Sergei Plotnikov earned two minutes.
Immediately Kuzmenko missed a couple of excellent chances, hitting the post and the crossbar.
And then Artyom Sergeev hit Emil Galimov in the face with a club.
Muscovites were left alone.
The hosts also failed to realize the double majority.
In order to escape, the guests had about three minutes, but the team spent them not in the best way.
For a long time it was impossible to even intercept the puck.
Only a minute before the siren Fedotov changed the sixth field.
Fedorov took a timeout 40 seconds before the end of the match.
It didn't help either.
The final siren recorded the first defeat of CSKA in the current Gagarin Cup.
SKA, on the other hand, equalized the score in the series and is heading to Moscow in a good mood.