Gusev's 300 passes, Gotovets' double in 22 seconds and Michkov's loan to Sochi: what happens in the KHL regular season

army derby

A week after the All-Star Game in the KHL, the regular season resumed, and each of the teams had already managed to hold at least a couple of meetings.

Lokomotiv took revenge on Ak Bars and inflicted a second defeat on him under the guidance of acting head coach Yuri Babenko.

And Torpedo dealt with Vityaz and became the league leader in terms of the duration of the current winning streak.

And in many ways, CSKA contributed to this, defeating the leader of the championship and the main contender for the Continental Cup - SKA.

On the eve of the derby, Roman Rotenberg's wards did not concede for seven meetings, and on their ice they were almost indestructible at all, gaining points in 22 matches in a row.

But Pavel Karnaukhov and Alexander Sharychenkov prevented them from improving the club record.

The striker first assisted Vladislav Kamenev, and 2 minutes 12 seconds before the final siren he scored the winning goal himself, while the goalkeeper made 33 saves, conceding only from Valentin Zykov.

In terms of the game, SKA completely surpassed CSKA, which is fully confirmed by the difference in the number of hits on target (34:20), but in terms of implementation, it was clearly not at its level.

Unlike the Muscovites, who only twice disturbed Vladislav Podyapolsky in the first period, but took advantage of the first moment in the second.

The grossest mistake of 19-year-old Arseniy Koromyslov led to a smashing counterattack.

In the decisive goal, you can already blame the goalkeeper himself, who failed to keep track of Karnaukhov, who rolled out from behind the gate.

“We played our best hockey in the first period, created a lot of scoring chances, 100% completed the installation.

In such matches, you need to score your chances, you need to work on it.

There was a pause, the guys got out of the playing tone, we saw it in the implementation.

In previous matches, we scored such 100% chances.

The second period slowed down, talked with the team during the break.

We made a mistake, our young defender is gaining experience, we talked with Arseniy that with the score 0:0 such individual actions are not needed.

Or there must be such actions that will definitely lead to the puck in the opponent’s goal, and not in ours, ”Rothenberg quotes the Championship.

Achievement of Gusev and double of Gotovets in 22 seconds

Nevertheless, last week SKA had a great reason to rejoice.

Two days before the derby, the army team defeated Vityaz, and immediately three of them scored two points each.

Marat Khairullin scored a double and climbed to fourth place in the list of top scorers in the KHL, overtaking Reid Boucher from Avangard, Damir Zhafyarov chalked up a goal and an assist, and Igor Ozhiganov twice played the role of an assistant.

But Nikita Gusev, who reached the mark of 300 effective passes in the Continental Hockey League, was again in the spotlight.

Thus, Gusev took sixth place in the list of the best assistants in the history of the tournament.

The Russian is second only to Linus Omark (305), Danis Zaripov (393), Alexander Radulov (400), Sergey Mozyakin (509) and Vadim Shipachyov (576).

The last week has also become significant for two foreign hockey players who have been playing in the championship for a long time.

So, Korban Knight helped Avangard to break the unbeaten run of Barys and along the way gave the 100th assist in the league, and the confidence of goalkeeper Janis Kalnins allowed Amur to win a major victory over Salavat Yulaev.

The guests prevailed with a score of 5:1, and the Latvian made 32 saves and won the 100th meeting in the KHL.

In turn, Kirill Gotovets became one of the main characters of the derby between Moscow Dynamo and Spartak.

Until that moment, the defender had only four goals in 254 regular season matches.

However, in the confrontation with the red and white, he broke out with two goals at once, and scored them with a difference of 22 seconds.

The blue and white ones were stronger (5:2), and the athlete himself admitted that he had never been able to do anything like this before.

“As for my double, I didn’t have such a thing in my professional career at all ... As a child, of course, I threw two and three, but not so fast.

An interesting point.

After the second goal, they shouted to me from the bench to stay on the third shift, but that would have been too much.

In the episode with the first goal, even I didn’t really see how the puck flew there.

In the second goal, the puck rebounded just as well for me, and the goalkeeper was well covered so that he would not see the moment of the throw, ”said Gotovets.

A new stage in Michkov's career

After losing to Dynamo, Spartak suffered their third defeat in a row in the regular season and remained in sixth place in the Western Conference table.

At the moment, in terms of the duration of the unsuccessful series, only Sochi “surpasses” it - the main outsider of the league, which recently failed to take the upper hand in the 12th meeting in a row.

The last time the Leopards took two points was on November 15 - they broke the resistance of Salavat Yulaev in overtime.

In total, in 40 games played, the Sochi team won only five victories (three in regular time) and with 17 points tightly hold the title of the worst team in the KHL, having two times less points than the closest competitor, Kunlun.

Moreover, even the change of coach did not help to improve the team's affairs - in the course of the championship Andrei Nazarov was replaced by Sergey Svetlov.

Perhaps this will be facilitated by the arrival of one of the most promising Russian strikers of recent years, Matvey Michkov, on loan from SKA until the end of the season.

In the current championship, 18-year-old Michkov only three times went out on the ice in an SKA sweater, but did not score a single point.

But in the VHL he looked more than decent and managed to score ten goals and four assists in 12 meetings.

And as the mentor of the Petersburgers considered, in order to continue developing, the young talent needs to take the next step and become the main one in the top division team.

“First of all, it is necessary to improve the physics and the game in all areas of the field, because hockey is not only an attack, but also a game of defense, in the middle zone.

This is both power and catching the puck on himself ... He probably has the best goal flair in the world, but all the details need to be improved in order to reach the level of the top KHL player, ”said Rotenberg.

Shumakov's scandalous departure and Emelin's new club

If Michkov's path to Sochi is just beginning, then the stage of Sergey Shumakov's career in Traktor has come to an end.

In October, a native of Chelyabinsk came to a local club, but left it two months later.

The contract was terminated by mutual agreement of the parties, the reason for which was probably not the best results of the striker.

In 18 matches, he scored only four (2 + 2) points, and recently he did not get into the squad at all.

As the mentor of the "bears" Anvar Gatiyatulin said, the reason for this was the non-ideal physical condition of the athlete.

However, Shumakov did not stay long without work.

A day later, it was announced that an agreement had been signed with Dynamo Minsk, whose colors the hockey player would defend until the end of this season.

Yes, and "Tractor" has already managed to find a replacement for him.

She became Nikita Soshnikov, who decided to try his hand at the NHL again.

But the next voyage across the ocean again did not work out.

The 29-year-old Russian failed to score in three games for the New York Islanders, after which he was sent to the Bridgeport AHL club, but did not stand out there either (0 + 1 in four meetings).

It is noteworthy that in the near future the same turn may occur in the career of Alexander Burmistrov.

According to the Championship, in the near future the forward will terminate the contract with Ak Bars and join Metallurg as a free agent.

It is worth noting that rumors about the departure of the hockey player from Kazan have been circulating for a long time, and the conflict with the then head coach of the team Oleg Znarok was cited as the reason.

However, with the departure of the specialist, the intentions of the management have not changed.

In turn, the three-time winner of the Gagarin Cup Alexei Emelin has already found a new home.

The other day, he stopped working with Dynamo Minsk and signed a short-term contract with Spartak.

Apparently, in this way the managers of the red and white hope to strengthen the rear, but whether the 36-year-old veteran will help in this is a big question.

At the moment, he has one of the worst utility rates in the league ("-13"), which is unlikely to be crossed out by nine assists.

At the same time, Emelin's former club is looking for reinforcements both in the defensive and goalkeeping lines.

In a few days, Avangard made an exchange with CSKA, having received an experienced Bogdan Kiselevich instead of Vladimir Bryukvin.

He also signed an agreement with goalkeeper Alexei Melnichuk.

And this is quite an interesting decision.

Recently, he defended the colors of Traktor on loan, but extremely unsuccessfully.

In four games, he missed ten goals, and the percentage of reflected shots was only 75%.

After that, the athlete returned to Sochi, where his contract was terminated.

“We were looking for a reinforcement for the goalkeeper position, since Stanislav Galimov was injured during the season.

When Alexei Melnichuk appeared on the market, we consulted with the coaching staff, and after the recommendations of Mikhail Kravets, who worked with this goalkeeper, we decided to sign a contract.

Alexey had a good time last season, he played confidently.

Yes, not everything went smoothly this season, but I believe that he will be able to help the team, ”the press service of Omsk general manager Rashid Khabibulin quotes.