Many foreigners left the KHL in connection with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but Klas Dahlbeck and Adam Reideborn remained and now they can call themselves Gagarin Cup champions after their CSKA Moscow defeated Linus Videll's Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the seventh, decisive final match.
CSKA, who were down 3-1 in matches a few days ago, started clearly the best and also received dividends twice when Pavel Karnaukhov and the 41-year-old Alexander Popov netted in the first period.
In the second period we saw a new Magnitogorsk, but despite a strong game advantage they did not manage to get a reduction behind a big player Ivan Fedotov in the guests' box and instead they were forced to watch when Konstantin Okulov extended CSKA's lead to 3 –0.
Admittedly, a small jump was ignited when the Canadian Philippe Maillet reduced in powerplay with one second left to play the period, but they never came closer than that.
With just under three and a half minutes left to play, Vladislav Kamenev put 4-1 in the open box and thus CSKA got revenge for last year's final loss against Avangard Omsk.