KHL - Playoffs Round 1 - Ak Bars v Amur 4-1

Game 1 - March 4 - Ak Bars v Amur 3-0

This series pits one of the KHL’s most successful teams against a rare visitor to the playoffs. Ak Bars, twice a Gagarin Cup winner, once more a runner-up and a regular in every post-season since the league started, had the prestige and the reputation to make a match-up with Amur seem like a foregone conclusion.
However, the Khabarovsk team had reached only its second KHL playoff with a strong run of form in the latter half of the regular season. Moreover, in an unusually intense Eastern Conference, the gap between top seed Ak Bars and eighth-placed Amur was a mere 12 points; in the West, SKA enjoyed a 55-point cushion over its playoff opponent, Severstal. More evidence of the narrow gap between the teams: both Ak Bars and Amur had the same number of players – four – at the recent Olympic Winter Games. For Ak Bars, Rob Klinkhammer helped the Canadians to bronze, while Jiri Sekac, Anton Lander and Atte Ohtamaa represented the Czechs, Swedes and Finns respectively. Amur had Finnish goalie Juha Metsola, plus Czech trio Jan Kolar, Michal Jordan and Tomas Zohorna.
So it wasn’t so surprising that Ak Bars did not run away with the game from the first seconds. True, the home team had by far the bulk of the play in the first period, but a well-drilled visiting defense and solid goaltending from Metsola ensured the game was goalless at the first intermission.
Justin Azevedo broke the deadlock 17 seconds into the middle frame with a fine goal. Jiri Sekac played a no-look pass off the boards for Anton Lander; the Swede then found Azevedo with half the ice at his mercy and the Canadian took a couple of strides in from the point before blasting home the opener. Amur still had its chances, and even put the puck into Emil Garipov’s net in the 29^th minute, only for the video review to spot a kicking motion by Vladislav Ushenin and rule out the score. Moments later, Ak Bars doubled its lead through Yaroslav Kosov and Amur’s prospects looked slim. Stanislav Galiyev added a third midway through the final frame, and Garipov began his playoff campaign with a shut-out after turning away 17 shots from Amur as Ak Bars made a solid start to its 2018 Gagarin Cup bid.

Game 2 - March 5 - Ak Bars v Amur 3-2

Justin Azevedo’s goal five minutes from time earned Ak Bars a 2-0 lead to take on the long trip to Khabarovsk – but the Eastern Conference top seed did not have everything its own way in this one.
Azevedo’s winner had shades of Lev Prague: Jiri Sekac fired in the shot, and Azevedo arrived from nowhere to apply the crucial touch that put the puck – and the game – beyond the reach of Juha Metsola and Amur. That pair had been part of Lev’s glory run to the Gagarin Cup final in 2014, and it’s not hard to imagine Ak Bars emulating that performance this season.
Earlier, though, Amur had grabbed a first-period lead in this game. Kirill Rasskazov applied the close-range finish after Jan Kolar’s point shot late in the opening frame. Ak Bars tied it up seconds into the middle session when Azevedo delivered a perfect feed for Anton Lander to shoot home, and Stanislav Galiyev made it 2-1 midway through the game with a goal reminiscent of Rasskazov’s opener. Even then, Amur refused to go quietly. Tomas Zohorna raced in from the blue line to tie it up again, Metsola denied Vladimir Tkachyov’s penalty shot. Ak Bars was in control of the shot count, but had a hard time settling the outcome until Azevedo’s late goal secured a comfortable cushion to take to the Far East.
Game 3 - March 7 - Amur v Ak Bars 4-1

Amur recorded its first ever victory in a KHL playoff game, reigniting its series with Ak Bars thanks to an impressive performance from its power play.
After falling behind early on, the host recovered in the second period with two power play goals. At the start of the third, the home PP made it 3-1 and the game was as good as won. And, having lost twice in Kazan at the start of the series, Amur is now right back in contention – with the chance to tie things up tomorrow when game four takes place in Khabarovsk.
On the travel day, the teams faced the longest journey of any playoff pair, about 5,500km as the crow flies, and it was Amur that looked to be feeling the effects of that trip early on. Vladimir Tkachyov opened the scoring in the fifth minute, gobbling up the rebound after Juha Metsola padded away a shot from Stanislav Galiyev. Ak Bars continued to have the better of the first frame: if the shot count was close, the visitor spent far more time on the attack in the opening exchanges.
The middle frame changed all that. A string of penalties disrupted both teams, and Amur took advantage to tie the scores early in the second period, converting a power play chance within seconds. Bogdan Potekhin won the face-off and the Ushenin twins combined to create a shooting lane for Vladislav to level it up. And when Nikita Lyamkin took a double minor for high sticks late in the session, he ended up punished twice by Vyacheslav Litovchenko. First, Litovchenko got in front of Emil Garipov to touch home a Maxim Kondratyev shot on 39:52. With Lyamkin still serving his second penalty, the forward repeated the trick seconds into the final frame: Kondratyev from the point, Litovchenko on the doorstep – 3-1 to Amur. Ak Bars struggled to generate chances to get back into the game, and the outcome was wrapped up in the closing minutes when Vyacheslav Ushenin joined his brother on the scoresheet. Released on the counter by Michal Jordan, Ushenin got past Andrei Markov and finished the play himself to put Amur right back into the series.
Game 4 - March 8 - Amur v Ak Bars 1-3

The Ak Bars power play made all the difference in this game, contributing all three goals as the Kazan team moved to within one game of playoff progress. Forward Justin Azevedo proved to be the orchestrator of his team’s success, scoring once and supplying two assists as the Eastern Conference’s top seed bounced back from Wednesday’s stumble in Khabarovsk.
Azevedo’s performance moves him to six (3+3) points from four playoff games, and he has found the net in each of Ak Bars’ victories so far in this post season. The Canadian is now just one shy of bringing up 50 playoff points in a KHL career that began with Lev Prague’s Gagarin Cup run of 2014.
His first contribution against Amur today came after 12 minutes. Lurking in the left-hand channels, he exchanged passes with Vasily Tokranov at the centre point before the defenseman fired home the opening goal. Tokranov was also involved in the second Ak Bars goal, seven minutes into the second frame. The D-man quarterbacked the power play from the blue line, and the puck travelled right to Jiri Sekac for the Czech to swing a diagonal feed to the waiting Azevedo. The forward kept up his hot streak by beating Juha Metsola from a tight angle.
The game was not producing high levels of goalmouth action – outside of the power play opportunities that largely fell to Ak Bars, the teams were doing a good job of cancelling each other out in five-on-five play. It was all rather reminiscent of 24 hours earlier, when Amur’s power play delivered three goals in a 4-1 victory; these teams have worked out a lot of each other’s games when at full strength. In the third period, Amur did manage an even strength goal – Kirill Rasskazov bundling home the rebound from an Oleg Li shot – and threatened to make a game of it in the closing stages. However, a 5-on-3 advantage for Ak Bars effectively ended the game in the 53^rd minute: Azevedo circled from the point to the goal line before firing a pass for Stanislav Galiyev to make it 3-1.
Game 5 - March 10 - Ak Bars v Amur 2-1

A Rob Klinkhammer goal seven minutes from the hooter saw Ak Bars safely into the Eastern Conference semi-finals after seeing off Amur.
The Kazan team, old hands at negotiating playoff series, managed to find that bit extra to wear down a resolute Amur team that offered solid defense but lacked the creative spark needed to edge a run of tight games. That kind of creativity was precisely what separated the teams after just 20 seconds of this game: Ak Bars gained possession on its own blue line, and its first line of Jiri Sekac, Justin Azevedo and Anton Lander fizzed a scintillating string of passes to take the puck up to the other end for Lander to open the scoring.
Behind the eight ball from the off, Amur’s cause was hardly helped by a couple of minor penalties. However, the visitor remained strong on the PK and having emerged from that spell of trouble, Amur managed to tie the game. Pavel Dedunov was the star man, powering past Atte Ohtamaa and scoring on the rebound from his own backhand shot.
The middle frame was fast-paced – sometimes frantic – but did not produce many clear opportunities at either end. But in the final session, the home team began to take control of matters and forged ahead at last in the 54^th minute. Klinkhammer claimed the goal, firing home from close range with Juha Metsola out of position, but it was captain Alexander Svitov who created it. He began the play in centre ice, then moved into position to collect Nikita Lyamkin’s pass from behind the net. It looked like a perfect set-up for Svitov to shoot, but instead he showed great presence of mind to slip the puck across the front of Metsola’s net for Klinkhammer to finish off the game – and the series – with a simple tap-in.