The incredible victory of the "Admiral"

The first round of the Gagarin Cup turns out to be bright and unpredictable in a good way.

The fight goes on in almost all pairs, and the favorites take their toll with great difficulty.

A good example was the confrontation between Salavat Yulaev and Admiral.

After a difficult away victory, the Ufa team, who took second place in the East in the regular season, seemed to have a great chance to take the lead in the series and stop one step away from reaching the conference semi-finals.

But they were waiting for a cold shower in the form of two missed goals in the debut.

The guests opened the scoring already at the 52nd second, when Alexander Shevchenko put an end to a quick counterattack.

The headquarters of the rivals immediately took a look for offside.

But the judges determined that there was no violation of the rules, and the hosts also received a removal for an unused request.

The majority was quickly implemented by Danil Fayzullin.

Thus, "Admiral" scored two goals in one minute and 26 seconds and set a record for the rate of fire in the KHL playoffs for one team.

And after an accurate throw by Yuri Pautov at the beginning of the second period, the impression was that all questions about the winner were removed.

But the wards of Viktor Kozlov did not think to give up and returned to the game even before the break.

The rudeness of opponents helped them.

First, Libor Shulak got two minutes for throwing the puck, and Mikhail Naumenkov closed the gap in unequal lineups.

And then Shevchenko hit the opponent with a stick, and Alexei Pustozerov left no chance for Nikita Serebryakov from close range.

In the final segment, "Salavat Yulaev" began to storm the gates of others and still managed to escape nine seconds before the end of normal time.

Double designed Pustozerov, literally picking the puck into the net.

In overtime, the inspired Ufa continued to attack and were close to snatching the victory, but Serebryakov acted beyond praise, making 37 saves per match.

And during one of the rare counterattacks, the Admiral unexpectedly scored.

Shevchenko, after an excellent throw from the depths from under the defender, beautifully hit exactly in the far nine without a chance for the goalkeeper - 4:3.

Confident defeat from Ak Bars

But in another meeting in the East, the struggle did not work out.

Ak Bars didn't leave any chances to Neftekhimik - 6:1.

At the same time, the starting period was equal, and the guests even had a slight advantage.

They were not embarrassed by the accurate throw of Dmitry Voronkov at the 43rd second.

Oleg Leontiev's team reacted calmly to him, and shortly before the break Ansel Galimov restored the balance.

However, in the second segment, the Nizhnekamsk players suddenly fell down, conceding four unanswered goals in 15 minutes.

In many ways, they were let down by an unsuccessful game in the minority.

The hosts mercilessly punished opponents for two out of three deletions.

After the goals of Stanislav Galiev and Dmitry Kagarlitsky, Neftekhimik fell apart and conceded twice more before the end of the period.

First, Nikita Dynyak scored after a magnificent pass from Artyom Lukoyanov from behind the gate, and then Alexander Radulov scored.

He did not stop there, and shortly before the final siren, he scored a double, when two hockey players received removals from the opponent at once.

The forward correctly disposed of the moment on the penny.

Thus, he scored three points and brought the number of goals in the current playoffs to four.

And another player who previously played in the NHL, Vyacheslav Voynov, twice assisted partners.

It is also necessary to note the hosts' goalkeeper Timur Bilyalov, who saved 29 shots.

Thanks to his saves, the guests scored only once, although they rerolled the favorite.

Painful revenge from SKA

SKA also managed to take revenge for an unexpected defeat in the previous match.

On Tuesday, the Petersburgers sensationally lost on the road to Dynamo Minsk and allowed the opponent to equalize the score in the series.

The start of the home meeting also turned out to be not very successful, and the fans of the hosts could have a natural feeling of anxiety.

Already in the middle of the first period, Vitaly Pinchuk converted the majority after the removal of Dmitry Yashkin.

If the Belarusian team managed to keep the desired result until the break, the venerable opponent could have had difficulties.

But Ilya Shinkevich let the team down, hitting the opponent out of the blue with a club.

Wards of Roman Rotenberg simply had no right not to realize such a moment.

Moreover, Yashkin distinguished himself, thus correcting himself for his two-minute penalty.

Shortly before the break, SKA took the lead with a great three-on-one counterattack.

Vasily Glotov did not give the transfer to his partners, he threw it himself and hit exactly the next nine.

And at the end of the second segment, the Petersburgers again converted the majority - and again Yashkin hit the other people's goal from close range.

To the credit of the Minskers, in the final segment they did everything to escape and almost reached their goal.

Involuntarily, they were also helped by their opponents, who allowed failures in defense.

So, immediately after the break, the blue and white ran into a three-on-two counterattack, and Cedric Paquette reduced the backlog.

And in the 52nd minute, Dmitry Sokolov jumped out to a rendezvous with Dmitry Nikolaev and converted it.

However, the hosts timely increased the gap.

For example, a minute and a half after Paquette's goal, Gusev scored.

Shortly before the final siren, Dynamo removed the goalkeeper and the whole team went forward.

But it did not help.

On the contrary, Marat Khairullin hit an empty target twice and scored a double.

The inflexible character of Lokomotiv

After a disappointing defeat from Lokomotiv in overtime of the fourth match of the series, Vityaz head coach Vyacheslav Butsaev promised that his wards would do everything to return to Balashikha for the sixth meeting after the trip to Yaroslavl.

The specialist did not disappoint.

His wards really gave their best on the ice and showed an incredible thirst for the fight.

They went to the end in every episode and spared neither themselves nor their rivals.

Goalkeeper Maxim Dorozhko was especially good in their composition.

The mentor unexpectedly left Dmitry Shikin on the bench, who made 62 saves in the previous game.

But this move paid off completely.

From the first minutes, his colleague caught incredible courage and stopped the opponent's attacks over and over again.

In regulation time alone, he saved 32 clicks.

And another three dozen were blocked by partners.

But his counterpart Daniil Isaev, on the contrary, made a gross scoring mistake in the debut of the match.

He imprudently rolled out of the gate and allowed himself to be robbed by Ivan Zinchenko.

The goalkeeper almost managed to get back, but the opponent still managed to push the puck into the near corner.

The hosts managed to recoup only ten minutes before the end of regular time.

And the delayed removal helped them in this.

Being six against five opponents, they played a beautiful combination that ended with an accurate throw by Stepan Nikulin from the right circle.

In this situation, even Dorozhko could not help out the partners.

In overtime, Yaroslavl already had an overwhelming advantage.

They made almost three times more shots than their opponents (17 vs. 6) and spent more than eight minutes in attack, while the guests did not reach even three.

But the puck stubbornly did not go into the gates of Dorozhko, who eventually recorded 48 saves in his asset.

Unfortunately for the Moscow Region team, it was ruined by the very first penalty at the start of the second overtime.

Vladislav Kara hit the opponent in the face with a club and went to the bench.

The hosts immediately realized the majority.

George Ivanov pushed the puck into the net.

So Lokomotiv became the first team to reach the semi-finals of the conference.