Gusev's achievement

One of the main events of the last week in the Kontinental Hockey League was the return of Nikita Gusev to SKA.

On November 1, the star striker signed an agreement with the leader of the regular season, and a day later he made his debut match in his composition.

And he did it more than successfully.

At the beginning of the second period, he took part in the majority draw and assisted Stepan Falkovsky, and ten minutes later he distinguished himself in unequal compositions.

And the goal was pretty funny.

The ex-forward of New Jersey performed a cross on Dmitry Yashkin, who was on the penny, but the puck ricocheted from the stick of the defender of Sochi, Yuri Alexandrov, flew into the net.

Gusev helped SKA win the eighth victory in a row and increase the gap from the closest pursuers in the dispute for the Continental Cup, and he himself became not only the first star of the meeting, but also the army's top scorer in history.

In all tournaments, Nikita scored 371 (122 + 249) points for the Petersburgers and bypassed Ilya Kovalchuk (161 + 209) in this indicator.

And although the striker was pleased with the achievement, he was not completely satisfied with his performance.

“I could have played better, but it is important that we won.

We look only forward.

I was congratulated on the ice for being the top scorer in history.

It's good that everything was closed at once, in the first game.

I found out that I got into the squad during training.

It was nice to return to the arena, the stands were full, ”RIA Novosti quotes Gusev.

Perhaps the criticism towards himself is due to the fact that Gusev was on the ice in the episodes with both goals scored by the guests and ended the meeting with a neutral indicator of usefulness.

And this is in a confrontation with a team that not only occupies the last line in the championship table, but also scored the fewest goals at that time (44).

However, Sochi fans were hardly pleased with this event.

They suffered the tenth defeat in a row and the third after the appointment of Sergei Svetlov as head coach.

Return of Radulov

Also, this week gave the fans of Kazan "Ak Bars" to feel the difference between the performances of the team with Alexander Radulov in the line-up and without him.

On Friday, Oleg Znarok made a sensational announcement about the transfer of the star forward to the reserve, because of which he missed the meeting with Neftekhimik.

And in his absence, Kazan defeated rivals from Nizhnekamsk.

On debut, they conceded twice in 67 seconds, but then came to their senses and burst into five unanswered washers.

The main creators of success were Nikita Evseev (2 + 0), Kirill Semyonov and Ilya Safonov (both 1 + 1), who scored two points each, while Vadim Shipachyov extended the “dry” series.

During this time, Radulov managed to give a resonant interview, speaking ambiguously about both the transfer to the reserve and his future in Kazan, which did not prevent him from returning to the ice already in the confrontation with CSKA.

And although Alexander himself not only scored an assist and ended the match “in the black”, Ak Bars lost again (2:3).

Yes, the army team only slightly outperformed their counterparts in hits on target (24:23), but they attacked much more.

This is clearly demonstrated by the statistics of blocked shots, of which Znarka's men had almost three times more (25:9).

The “green derby” with “Salavat Yulaev” was not easy either.

In regular time, the opponents scored once, and in overtime they failed to hit each other's gates.

The victor was determined in a shootout, where the same Kazan veteran said his weighty word.

Radulov became the author of the winning throw and helped Ak Bars cope with the Ufa team for the second time this season.

All the more surprising is Znark's emotional reaction to the question about the attacker.

“Did Radulov’s educational measures play?

Yes, what kind of educational measures, guys?

Well, what are you.

The issue has been closed for a long time.

It happens on every team.

Don't blow it up, why do you need it?

Do you want to write something like this?

I still don’t read it, ”the Championship specialist quotes.

The fall of Severstal, the problems of Vityaz and Spartak

If Ak Bars scores points, albeit every other time, then the team from Cherepovets is seriously slipping.

On October 16, Andrei Razin's wards coped with Sochi, after which they could not prevail for more than two weeks, until their paths again crossed with the main outsiders of the competition.

During this time they were beaten seven times.

In the first four cases, they were inferior with a minimal difference in the score, and the two subsequent failures turned out to be devastating.

For three days, Severstal lost to Amur and Sibir with a total difference of 3:10 (4:13).

However, the mentor, instead of criticizing the wards, attacked the leadership of the KHL.

In particular, on the compilers of the calendar, because of which the team was forced to hold nine meetings in 18 days, seven of them on the road.

Moreover, during this mini-tour, the yellow-blacks visited both Siberia and the Far East.

Nevertheless, Razin expressed hope to improve the situation and promised to work on the team's game in the minority.

Severstal conceded 23 times in unequal lineups.

Only Avtomobilist (26) and Kunlun (28) have more.

True, the club itself first of all took up strengthening the attacking line and acquired Yuri Platonov from Metallurg.

Unsuccessfully, the last weeks have developed for the "Vityaz".

Unlike Severstal, the hockey players from the Moscow region did not fly out of the playoff zone, but in nine matches they won only twice - over Kunlun and Traktor.

And this despite the fact that not all rivals were noticeably superior to them in the class.

Perhaps the wards of Vyacheslav Butsaev were also exhausted by the journey along the route Vladivostok - Khabarovsk - Novosibirsk.

But this still does not justify the defeats that followed after the defeats from Minsk Dynamo and Torpedo.

At the same time, they helped the Nizhny Novgorod team score the fastest goal in club history, conceding already in the ninth second.

But if one of the athletes does not deserve criticism from the mentor, then this is Maxim Dorozhko.

At the moment, the Vityaz goalkeeper ranks first in the league in terms of the percentage of shots reflected (95.6%) among goalkeepers who have played ten or more meetings in a season.

In this list, he is ahead of Dmitry Nikolaev from SKA (94.4%) and Nikita Serebryakov from Admiral (94.2%).

At the same time, in terms of reliability coefficient (1.46), he is second only to Konstantin Volkov from Dynamo (1.42).

For a long time, Vityaz's neighbors in the Western Conference standings did not please their fans either.

Until recently, Spartak had no excuse, because they suffered three defeats in a row entirely from strong opponents.

Moreover, the red-whites put up decent resistance to both Sibir and SKA and Avangard, and the last two scored six goals in total.

And this is pretty good for one of the most ineffective teams in the regular season.

The shock was the loss to Kunlun, which hit the gates of Patrick Rybar three times in less than seven minutes - 1:3.

End of CSKA winning streak

Unlike the above teams, the army team had a great second month of autumn and deservedly returned to second place in the KHL summary table, beating Metallurg.

The current holders of the Gagarin Cup rolled over their opponents and scored 11 victories in a row with a total difference of 39:12.

And in many respects this became possible thanks to Anton Slepyshev and Vladislav Kamenev.

During this period, the forwards scored 11 (3 + 8) and 10 (8 + 2) points, respectively.

All the more unexpected was their misfire in the confrontation with the modest Neftekhimik.

During the first 20 minutes and 45 seconds, CSKA took the lead three times, but then it cut off.

In the remaining time, the wards of Sergei Fedorov twice had a chance to realize the majority, but they could not break through Yaroslav Ozolin, and they themselves conceded twice.

In overtime, the mentor took the risk of removing the goalkeeper, for which he paid the price.

The empty net was struck by defender Kirill Vorobyov.

“Good, fast game, both teams forgot about defense.

We exchanged goals, this kind of hockey is not typical for us, but we should also try to play it.

Lost thread... Overtime?

You can’t do without mistakes, and we understand this very well, ”Fedorov commented on the defeat.