An unexpected outcome and the collapse of the favorite: Avangard snatched victory from Lokomotiv in overtime, Traktor put the squeeze on Dynamo

Traktor's character and dedication

For Dynamo, the third match of the series with Traktor was of particular importance.

And not only because, having suffered two defeats in a row on their home ice, it was vitally important for the Muscovites to break the opponent’s resistance and revive the intrigue in the confrontation.

On this day, Andrei Mironov was going to hold the next, 643rd meeting for the blue and white.

Two days ago, the defender repeated Sergei Vyshedkevich’s record, and now he was ready to take clear first place in this indicator.

And I probably wanted the conquest of this level to coincide with a victory over the Chelyabinsk team, and not another failure.

And at first everything worked out pretty well for Dynamo.

Alexey Kudashov's team were not only more active in front and forced Zach Fucale to enter the game more often than Maxim Motorygin, but also managed to open the scoring.

Less than five minutes before the break, Maxim Shabanov, who had had a great season, clearly overreacted and, in an attempt to save the puck, drove towards his own goal.

But he immediately found himself under pressure from two opponents at once and made an extremely unnecessary loss.

Nikita Gusev immediately addressed the pass to Jordan Weal, but he left no chance for the goalkeeper.

It is noteworthy that Dynamo could well have led to this more confidently if Dmitry Rashevsky had not hit the crossbar after a solo pass.

But the visiting young striker did not take advantage of his chance, after which the initiative began to gradually pass to Traktor.

This was partly facilitated by the Muscovites themselves, who were forced to play two minutes with four of them due to the sending off of Brennan Menell.

The Chelyabinsk residents staged a real siege, and Albert Yarullin even tested the strength of the barbell.

It seemed that the rest would benefit Dynamo, but no.

Traktor continued to dominate and by the sixth minute not only restored parity, but also took the lead.

And the main creators of this comeback were Anton Burdasov and Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, who took part in both effective combinations.

First, the first one responded to his partner’s pass and caught Motorygin by surprise with a magnificent touch throw, and 208 seconds later he returned the favor by converting the extra one.

The ex-Toronto forward positioned himself on the penny and on the second attempt sent the puck into the net.

Muscovites needed to come to their senses.

And another outburst of emotions, which had already occurred more than once during this series, helped them in this.

This time, Cedric Paquette and Victor Antipin started a brawl, as a result of which the teams spent two minutes in a four-on-four format.

And Dynamo took better advantage of the free space that appeared.

Artyom Ilyenko moved from the right flank to the center and completed his solo pass with an accurate hit under the crossbar.

However, the balance did not last long.

Yes, the blue and white could have been the first to break it, but they deprived themselves of the opportunity to play in the majority, spending only 35 seconds in this format.

Eric O'Dell was sent off for tripping.

And a little later, we got too carried away with the attack and missed a striking counterattack, which was effectively delivered by Mikhail Kotlyarevsky.

It is noteworthy that in the first meeting of the confrontation he had the same chance.

But if he shook the crossbar then, this time he was accurate.

Dynamo had no choice but to move forward with all its might.

However, it was possible to create a full-fledged pile-up only at the very end - ironically, this was facilitated by Kotlyarevsky being punished with a minor fine four and a half minutes before the siren.

Kudashov sent the sixth fielder onto the ice and chances at Fucale’s goal began to arise literally every second.

But the goalkeeper himself demonstrated the highest class, and his partners did not shy away from taking shots on themselves.

In total, they blocked 26 attempts, leaving the goalkeeper only required to show skill 33 times.

And no matter how hard the Muscovites tried, they could not break through this wall.

Traktor won a strong-willed victory (3:2) and was one step away from reaching the semi-finals of the Gagarin Cup.

Lokomotiv's dominance and Avangard's resilience

Avangard also risked getting into the same difficult situation, having shocked the hockey community the day before with its decision to fire its head coach right during the playoffs.

The place of Mikhail Kravets was taken by goalkeeper coach Sergei Zvyagin, and to what extent this was justified he promised to show the first away match of the series with Lokomotiv.

A small help for the Omsk team should have been the return to the lineup of Ryan Spooner, who missed the two previous meetings.

And although the Canadian, who was immediately included in the leading line, did not start very brightly, his partners managed to open the scoring without him and break Daniil Isaev’s impressive dry streak.

On the eve of the start of this meeting, he did not miss 136 minutes 40 seconds, but in the ninth minute he still faltered.

At the end of the majority, Damir Zhafyarov brought Semyon Chistyakov into the striking position, and he hit the home goalkeeper with a powerful flick.

And it made me wonder whether the move with the change of helmsman was really so absurd.

However, that was just a bright flash in the performance of Avangard.

Lokomotiv looked much stronger and not only stayed in the enemy zone almost twice as long, but also hit the target noticeably more often (13:6).

Pavel Khomchenko could not help out forever, and in the end he was still forced to capitulate, fortunately only once.

If Stepan Nikulin, with a fantastically accurate wrist shot, put it right into the top corner and helped the Yaroslavl team realize their numerical advantage, then Yaroslav Likhachev missed the chance.

110 seconds before the siren, he miraculously failed to connect with Alexander Polunin's cross at the far post.

Lokomotiv's crazy pressure did not subside even after the break.

Most of the time, Avangard was locked in its zone and fought off the opponent’s endless attacks, but at times it still responded.

After a solo pass into the far corner, Igor Martynov aimed, and then Zvyagin even got the opportunity to release the special team of the majority - Maxim Berezkin went to the box to trip him up.

But he couldn’t score or even take the initiative.

In equal strengths, the Omsk team looked weak and hoped either for Khomchenko’s reaction or for the inaccuracy of the Yaroslavl players.

And this approach bore fruit, because neither Polunin, nor Artur Kayumov or Dmitry Simashev could take the goalkeeper by surprise.

In the last minutes, Avangard even managed to take the game away from their goal and give Khomchenko some kind of respite.

And even though he didn’t really create anything, he stood up against the “kings” of the second periods.

Previously, the Yaroslavl team won five times in this period with a total score of 12:2 and took first place in the league in both the number of goals scored and goals conceded.

Thus, the “hawks’” chances of success, although slightly, increased, because in the third 20 minutes the railwaymen were far from being so good.

Out of seven, they prevailed in only two, and the goal ratio was not the most impressive (3:3).

True, Avangard itself had unimpressive statistics (4P - 0N - 3P, 5:5), so it was difficult to name a favorite.

As a result, although Lokomotiv surpassed Avangard both in time in attack (07:08 - 1:21) and in shots (11:5), they practically did not create any particularly acute moments.

And almost the main character of its first half was Likhachev.

First, he again did not take advantage of a great chance to distinguish himself, failing to close Pavel Kraskovsky's cross, and then he got into a fight with Artyom Chmykhov.

True, he did not succeed here either.

As in the case of the first match of the confrontation, the fate of this one was to be decided in overtime.

The question is which one?

After all, four days ago, the hockey players needed to spend almost 30 additional minutes on the ice, until Berezkin still left Khomchenko out of work.

This time everything was decided on the third.

And to everyone’s surprise, Avangard won.

Isaev found himself under a hail of shots, but if he didn’t let Spooner score, he couldn’t stop Reed Boucher from doing so.

The Hawks created a sensation and brought intrigue back to the series, and the American with eight goals broke away from his competitors in the sniper race.