The champion’s tough start.
The reigning Gagarin Cup Champion, Metallurg from Magnitogorsk, finished its first home series in the new KHL season. It was easy to predict that the beginning of the regular championship will be hard. Three key players missed the main training camp. Best scorer of the previous season, Danila Yurov (27 goals, 58 points), best play-off scorer, Denis Zernov (12 goals) and first line forward, Roman Kantserov, underwent surgery in May and are still recovering.
Daniil Vovchenko who scored the Cup winning goal on the 24th of April got injured during the oldest Russian preseason tournament, XXXIII Romazan Memorial. Another forward, Yegor Korobkin, got an injury during the first period of the Opening Cup game on the 3rd of September. After a hard hit he left the ice and never came back. Two more players didn’t participate in that first match. Only a few hours before the game forward Nikita Mikhailis and defenseman Valery Orekhov returned from their national team, Kazakhstan, which had taken part in the Olympic Qualification.
The last spring Gagarin Cup contender, Lokomotiv from Yaroslavl, was extra-motivated after having lost the final series 0:4. In the middle of the third period it had a three-goal lead. But then Dmitry Silantyev scored a great goal, and 192 seconds before the final siren Lucas Johnson closed the gap to a minimum. Metallurg made a big effort to tie the game, but Lokomotiv managed to defend its lead.
Three days later the match against another Russian TOP-team, SKA from St. Petersburg, turned into a real thriller. In the first period SKA outshot the hosts 20:8 and once capitalized on the powerplay. Anyway, by the end of the period there was a tie – Alexander Petunin made a big shot. At the very beginning of the next period Metallurg’s Swedish defenseman Robin Press made a fantastic long pass to the opponent’s blue line, and Nikita Mikhailis skillfully delivered the puck to his teammate, so that Igor Geraskin could hit the empty net.
Just 17 seconds later SKA’s newcomer, Evgeny Kuznetsov, scored his first goal after coming back from North America. Within two minutes Robin Press capitalized on a powerplay, but pretty soon Croatian Borna Rendulic tied the match again. Then 19-year old Andrei Kozlov from Magnitogorsk scored his first goal in KHL, but the guest team never gave up. One of Russia’s biggest prospects, Arseny Gritsyuk, sent the game into overtime.
Only a few seconds into the extra period Robin Press and Lucas Johnson made a great play, Metallurg’s Canadian newcomer Scott Wilson escaped the opponents and beat the goalie 1 on 1 scoring the game winner – 5:4.
In the last match of the series (against Neftekhimik from Nizhnekamsk) Metallurg didn’t manage to find the keys to its former goaltender, Artyom Zagidulin, who left the team in the middle of the previous season. The fact that Zagidulin is one of Magnitogorsk hockey school graduates made him even more motivated. So, the visitors’ goalie didn’t let a single goal and his team scored twice.
Now the champions are preparing for their first trip. During the next few days they will play in Nizhnekamsk, Kazan and Cherepovets.
