The fourth match between Ak Bars and Avangard in many ways became decisive in the series. Having won an incredible victory in overtime in the previous meeting, Kazan not only received a charge of positive emotions and self-confidence, but also again broke ahead in the score. And in the event of another win, they could stop a step away from reaching the final of the Gagarin Cup before returning to the home walls. Therefore, Omsk had to take the upper hand so as not to find themselves in an almost hopeless situation.
The visitors also benefited from the return to action of key defender Vyacheslav Voynov, who missed the last game due to injury. According to media reports, he was not supposed to go on the ice on Friday, but the experienced hockey player managed to recover. As for Omsk, they did not make a single castling in the squad, and only Stanislav Galimov continues to be among the injured.
The opening period turned out to be very similar to the same period of the second game. Avangard hockey players demonstrated from the first minutes that they needed a victory more, and arranged an assault on someone else's goal. They carried out one quick attack after another, baffling the opposing defenders. At first, they just had to play to the rebound. Omsk, on the other hand, immediately sought to enter the selection in order not to allow the Kazan team to organize a counter-attack. As a result, they spent more than five minutes in the foreign zone, while the guests spent 04:10.
However, it was not possible to cast. And first of all, the wards of Zinetula Bilyaletdinov should be grateful to Timur Bilyalov for this. In a difficult moment for the team, he regularly rescued his teammates and made six saves. The goalkeeper was reliable on the line and tried to catch the puck right away, not allowing him to play on the finish.
So, I remember the episode when Sergei Tolchinsky rolled out from behind the goal and almost pushed the shell into the near corner. Bilyalov managed to move the shield, and the first teammate on the rebound was a teammate. A little later, Ivan Telegin ran forward on the starboard side, receiving a brilliant pass from Alexei Bereglazov, but Timur again competently blocked the target and parried the shot with his shoulder. And in some episodes, the hosts were frankly unlucky. For example, Korban Knight miraculously did not close vladimir Tkachev's excellent cross to the far post.
Closer to the siren, the Ak Bars players gradually recovered and moved the game to the center. And the opponents slowed down. The main thing is that Kazan acted as disciplined as possible and did not receive a single sending-off. And chances at someone else's gate also began to arise. For example, Artem Galimov found himself with the puck right on the spot, but failed to break through Vasily Demchenko, who was spreading on the ice. And Alexander Radulov shot dangerously from mid-range and missed the left corner a bit.
No sooner had the teams returned to the game after the break than the first unexpected goal took place. Radulov was quietly allowed to break forward and throw from the left circle. Demchenko failed to fix the puck, and it was finished off by Dmitry Voronkov. The hosts made a request for a foul by the striker and were completely right. After watching a replay of the episode, the referees determined that the striker had crashed into the goalkeeper and cancelled the goal. Despite this, Mikhail Kravets was dissatisfied. In his opinion, Voronkov should have been sent off for two minutes.
Omsk responded to the incident with a new assault and conducted one after another a series of dangerous attacks. So, after the loss of Radulov, Fyodor Malykhin dangerously climbed out on the spot. And then the impenetrable Bilyalov parried the powerful shot of Ziyat Paigin with a shield.
Gradually, however, Ak Bars took the advantage. Kazan began to regularly bring the puck to someone else's spot and sharply improved in martial arts. They began to win most of the rebounds, which allowed them to lock the opponent in the zone. There were also good shots - in the second period, the visitors scored 12 of them. But each time the smallest thing in the final stage was missing. What is the episode when Kirill Petrov, it seemed, probably threw from a couple of meters, but Demchenko deflected a click of the hand, and then also coped with the finish.
It seemed that the guests were about to score, but they themselves made a gift to the opponent. In the end, first Nikita Dynyak got two minutes for playing with a high stick, and then Artem Lukoyanov for the footboard. Perfectly implementing the majority of Omsk residents got at their disposal more than a minute of play in the "five on three" format.
But they, as in the previous meeting, extremely unsuccessfully took advantage of such a chance. For a long time, the hosts could not even settle in the zone and did not really create a single chance, which caused a whistle from the local fans. But even in full squads, the Hawks had the advantage. They didn't want to bring it to a second overtime in a row. Kazan had to defend bravely, and in the first ten minutes of the final period they did not even make a single shot. But Bilyaletdinov's hockey players selflessly threw themselves under the pucks and in total blocked two dozen clicks per game. Bilyalov also continued to help out, eventually making 25 saves. For example, he saved after a dangerous shot by Arseniy Gritsyuk to the near nine with an awkward hand.
And when it seemed that in the main time the fate of the match would not be decided exactly, Kazan scored a goal that absolutely did not follow from the logic of the game. They had an extremely poor majority, but when the remote opponent returned to the ice, they still scored. Kirill Petrov from the right circle gave a pass to Voronkov, and he pushed the puck into the net with a ricochet from Demchenko's leg.
Kravets again took a request for a foul on the goalkeeper, but this time was unsuccessful. The referees quickly dismantled the episode and considered that the author of the goal acted cleanly. Omsk residents, as a punishment for the unrealized request, also remained in the minority. Let the guests fail to realize the majority again, they competently dragged out the time. Avangard had 3 minutes and 45 seconds left to escape, but the team seemed to be released. During this period, she did not create a single real chance and only at the end settled in someone else's zone. And Demchenko left the gate too late.
Thus, Ak Bars won the most important victory in the meeting, which it could well lose, and Kazan have to take one match to reach the final of the Gagarin Cup. Now they have a great opportunity to put an end to the series at their home stadium on April 9.