Repeat wins for Magnitka, Admiral; Dorozhko impresses on debut

Two days after Metallurg and Admiral picked up victories over Amur and Salavat Yulaev, Saturday’s rematches delivered similar outcomes. On both occasions, the outcome was closer, but the eventual victors were the same. In Saturday’s late game, Lokomotiv snapped a three-game skid with a shoot-out win over Vityaz, but struggled to solve rookie goalie Maxim Dorozhko who made 42 saves in his first KHL start.

Magnitka hunts down the Tigers again

Amur Khabarovsk 2 Metallurg Magnitogorsk 3 (0-1, 1-1, 1-1)

Metallurg defeated Amur for the second time in three days, but this was a tighter affair than Thursday’s 3-0 success.

Once again, the visitor hit three goals, but this time the Tigers stayed in contention after solving Eddie Pasquale at last.

In the first period the teams were evenly matched, but the Steelmen went into the break with a one goal advantage. Yegor Korobkin’s touch steered. Ilya Nikolayev’s point shot beyond Evgeny Alikin in the eight minute to open the scoring.

Midway through the second, Magnitka increased its lead when Ilya Khokhlov advanced and launched a powerful shot past Alikin. However, Amur responded with a power play goal from Cam Lee as the Canadian defenseman marked his KHL debut with a goal.

That had the game intriguingly poised going into the final stanza. However, Metallurg quickly restored its two-goal lead thanks to Semyon Koshelev’s goal 22 seconds into the third period. Amur refused to roll over, and kept up the pressure until the end. Igor Rudenkov’s late goal kept things interesting until the final hooter but Magnitka held on for the win.

Admiral up to third

Admiral Vladivostok 2 Salavat Yulaev Ufa 1 OT (0-1, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0)

It’s three straight wins for Admiral and three successive losses for Salavat Yulaev as the teams played out their second instalment of a double header on Saturday. After the Sailors won 2-0 on Thursday, they followed up with an overtime success to climb to third in the Eastern Conference.

Ufa, meanwhile, is still something of a work in progress under new head coach Viktor Kozlov. Salavat Yulaev is much changed following the departure of its flying Finns and the new line-up has yet to gel as hoped.

That did not stop the visitor getting ahead in this game. A power play midway through the first period saw Nikolai Kulemin open the scoring when he forced home the rebound from an Ivan Drozdov shot.

However, Admiral’s Libor Sulak has been a big performer this season and the home captain delivered a tying goal early in the second session. He smashed home a feed from Alexander Gorshkov to score for the third game in a row and underline his status as the key figure on the Sailors’ power play.

Both teams had chances to win it in the rest of the game, and the final moments of regulation were particularly frantic with a power play for each team in the closing stages. But the action went to overtime before Leonid Metalnikov’s stretch pass sliced open Ufa’s defense to release Evgeny Grachyov for the winning goal.

Defiant Dorozhko’s memorable debut

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 1 Vityaz Moscow Region 0 SO (0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-0)

Maxim Dorozhko had a KHL debut to remember after stopping 42 saves to frustrate Lokomotiv. The 24-year-old started a game at this level for the first time in his career, having previously come off the bench late in his team’s loss at CSKA last week.

Dorozhko was busy from the start in a game that Lokomotiv dominated, but pulled off save after save to keep his team in contention. In the first period, the home team outshot Vityaz 14-7, with a Pavel Kraskovsky effort forcing Dorozhko’s best stop of the opening session. The middle frame saw the host enjoy a 19-4 advantage without finding a way past the rookie. Gradually, though, the visitor began to clamp down on Loko’s offense and the flow of chances began to slow. Late in the second, there were even signs of danger at the other end when Stepan Starkov hit the piping and Tyler Graovac missed the target when an open corner presented itself.

The third period, and overtime, were tight as both teams recognized the high cost of any error. In the end, it was another KHL newcomer who settled the outcome. Stepan Nikulin, 21, was playing only his sixth game in the league. However, he was the only man to convert his attempt in the shoot-out, winning it for Lokomotiv with the 17^th shot of the extras. Vitaly Popov then missed the chance to keep Vityaz alive and the Railwaymen halted their three-game losing streak.

Source: en.khl.ru