Game 1 - March 4 - Avtomobilist v Metallurg 2-3
The playoffs just wouldn’t be the same without Sergei Mozyakin. The Metallurg captain has carved his name indelibly into the highlights of post-season, and this 10th year of KHL playoff action is already no exception. This was not always a vintage Metallurg performance, but the outcome went the way of the Magnitogorsk team thanks to the ever-sparkling Mozyakin.
He got the winner with seven-and-a-half minutes left on the clock, firing in a shot that Jakub Kovar could only pad away to his brother, Metallurg forward Jan. The forward whipped the puck to the far post where Mozyakin, advancing to the back door, deflected it into the net. Avtomobilist, which had led 2-0, was furious: Nikita Tryamkin angrily gestured to his foot, claiming that Mozyakin had sidefooted the puck home like a footballer; the video review found otherwise and the goal stood. Mozyakin is now one shy of 500 career goals and another unprecedented milestone in Russian hockey history.
Magnitka’s recovery was not all about Mozyakin, though. Wojtek Wolski led the charge with two goals to tie the game. His first, on the power play late in the middle frame, was a one-timer off a delightful Mozyakin feed from face-off spot to face-off spot. The second, again on the PP, came from a tight angle after Kovar and Chris Lee fed the puck around the Avtomobilist zone.
Earlier, though, things were much brighter for Avtomobilist. The Yekaterinburg team has yet to win a KHL playoff series, but this season, for the first time, it comes into post-season as a seeded team. And home advantage paid off in the early exchanges when Dwight King and Francis Pare exchanged passes before the former Magnitka man fired his current employer in front. Pare was involved again as Avto made it 2-0. Another counter attack saw the Canadian feed Anatoly Golyshev for a wrist shot to double the host’s lead.
Game 2 - March 5 - Avtomobilist v Metallurg 2-1
Sometimes, playoff hockey is all about learning from what went wrong. Yesterday, Avtomobilist got the first half of its game just right, jumping to a 2-0 lead over Metallurg. But then, Sergei Mozyakin intervened with another captain’s performance to turn the game around and win it for Magnitka. Today, after celebrating a 2-0 lead in the 21st minute, Avtomobilist froze Mozyakin out of the game. The master marksman was limited to a single shot on Jakub Kovar’s net and Metallurg could muster just one goal in reply. Crucially, when the series heads to the southern end of the Urals on Wednesday, the teams will be deadlocked at 1-1.
The opening goal, in the 13th minute, resembled Avtomobilist’s opener from the previous day. Metallurg had a face-off in the Avto zone, the host seized possession and Alexander Kucheryavenko exchanged passes with Ilya Krikunov before firing home to complete an effective counter-attack. Soon afterwards, Magnitka’s Matt Ellison was removed from the game after a high hit on Evgeny Chesalin – and his absence was felt as the visiting offense stuttered.
Early in the second period, Yegor Milovzorov made it 2-0, reacting fastest to the possibilities after Dmitry Megalinsky attempted a point shot and caught the Metallurg defense by surprise. The game situation was now almost an exact replica of the opening encounter in this series, but Avtomobilist made sure the outcome was different.
True, Metallurg got a goal back midway through the game. Denis Platonov fired in a wrist shot to complete a swift counter-attack and put the outcome back in the balance. But in the final frame, as the visitor looked to ramp up the pressure on Kovar, it ran into a red wall of Avtomobilist defense. The teams shared just nine shots on goal in the third period, a statistic that suited the host perfectly as it levelled up the series.
Sergei Mozyakin brought up his latest milestone, scoring his 500th career goal in this playoff match-up with Avtomobilist. More importantly, his two-point performance earned Metallurg a hard-fought victory to go back in front in this highly competitive series. The big moment came four minutes from the end of the second period and, not surprisingly, the landmark goal was a clutch goal in the game – and potentially the series. It was a finish familiar to anyone who has watched the master at work, loitering with intent at the far post before firing home a Jan Kovar pass from a tight angle. That tied that game at 1-1 as Mozyakin became the first Russian player to reach 500 goals in the country’s top league. There was a pleasing symmetry about the milestone as well: last season, in the third game of Metallurg’s playoff first round series against Kunlun Red Star, Mozyakin collected his 1,000th point. Playoff hockey brings out the best in the best, and Magnitka’s captain has always been a man for the big occasion.
Mozyakin, of course, is not just a goalscorer – and he highlighted his value once again with a devastating assist on Kovar’s game-winner. Wojtek Wolski released him and Kovar on a 2-on-1 break; Mozyakin held the puck long enough to force Michal Cajkovsky to commit himself and, once the defenseman was sprawled across the ice, had the vision to put the puck onto Kovar’s tape for a simple finish into an open net. For the second time in the series, Metallurg came from behind to lead. Evgeny Timkin added a third late on to seal the win and put Magnitka 2-1 up after three games. However, despite Mozyakin’s mastery, this series is by no means a foregone conclusion. After two tight games in Yekaterinburg, this was another arm wrestle. Avto deservedly broke the deadlock late in the first when Anatoly Golyshev fired home Andrei Chesalin’s feed from behind the goalline, and the visitor resisted a storm of Metallurg pressure in the second stanza before Mozyakin finally swung the game in the home team’s favor.
Game 4 - March 8 - Metallurg v Avtomobilist 1-2
Francis Pare, once deemed surplus to requirements in Magnitogorsk, came back to haunt his former club with a game-winning goal that hauled Avtomobilist level in this series. The Canadian forward began his KHL career at Metallurg under Mike Keenan, helping the team to win the 2014 Gagarin Cup. But the following season saw him traded to Traktor, and since then he’s had stints at Slovan and Medvescak before joining Avto last summer. Today, though, as the game entered the last five minutes, he delivered an abrupt reminder of his talents to everyone in Magnitogorsk, helping his team snatch a vital victory in an intriguing series.
There seemed to be little on as Avto shot the puck into the corner, but the Magnitka defense switched off and allowed Pare to advance to the slot without much effort to halt his progress. Anatoly Golyshev delivered the pass from behind the net, and Pare’s finish squeezed inside the post to win the game and send the teams back to Yekaterinburg with the series locked at 2-2.
Once again, the teams served up a tight contest, with little to choose between them on the balance of the play. Avtomobilist made the initial breakthrough late in the first period, following a spell of steadily increasing pressure on Vasily Koshechkin’s net as Metallurg killed a double minor penalty. Alexander Torchenyuk was the scorer, taking the puck from his own end to Magnitka’s before firing home as Grigory Dronov backed off his run.
Metallurg tied the game up in the second period with a goal straight from the coach’s playbook. Oskar Osala won the face-off, Dronov pushed the puck back to the blue line, and Chris Lee fired home from long range. A simple tactic, but an effective one, something we’ve seen often enough from this team in recent seasons. The home team continued to press, looking to take a grip on proceedings, but Dronov fired wide, Wojtek Wolski drew a glove save from Jakub Kovar and a penalty on Denis Denisov slowed the home momentum.
Game 5 - March 10 - Avtomobilist v Metallurg 1-4
After a tight series, Metallurg finally produced a relatively comfortable winning margin to move 3-2 ahead – but it took two goals in the closing minutes for last year’s runner-up to subdue Avtomobilist here.
The game was very much in the balance with Magnitka leading 2-1, but a penalty against Alexei Simakov in the 53rd minute gave Metallurg the chance to finish things off. That chance was taken by Oskar Osala, who got on the rebound after a wayward shot from Sergei Tereshchenko thudded off the boards and dropped kindly for the Finn to make it 3-1. That forced Avtomobilist to gamble, and ultimately Metallurg cashed in with a fourth goal from Jan Kovar scored in an empty net 12 seconds from the hooter. It gave the final scoreline a comfortable look that did not entirely reflect the game.
Statistically there was little between the teams in the first two periods. The shot count, and the time spent on offense at each end of the ice were both broadly comparable. Even the early scoring saw the teams trade quick goals. Artyom Gareyev put Avto in front in the 10thminute, tipping home a Michal Cajkovsky effort from the blue line, but a minute later Alexei Bereglazov’s slap shot caught Jakub Kovar by surprise and tied the scores.
However, Avtomobilist ran into penalty trouble late in the opening session, and Magnitka capitalized on its second power play to grab a vital advantage. The goal came from a classic interchange as Metallurg pinged the puck around the zone looking for that weak spot. Finally, Sergei Mozyakin upped the tempo, Wojtek Wolski flicked the puck back to the centrally-placed Matt Ellison and the Canadian beat Kovar for the game-winner. Now Metallurg has the chance to wrap up the series on home ice on Monday, while Avtomobilist faces a ‘win-or-bust’ showdown in Magnitogorsk.
Game 6 - March 12 - Metallurg v Avtomobilist 3-1
Oskar Osala posted his 100th KHL goal to wrap up the series for Magnitka. And, for fans who like an omen or two, the 4-2 series scoreline against Avtomobilist mirrors Metallurg’s start to the 2016 playoffs when it last lifted the Gagarin Cup.
Osala’s big moment came in the final minute, scoring an empty-netter to squash Avtomobilist’s hopes of saving this game and prolonging its first-round series. The Finn cashed in on a slip from Anatoly Golyshev to fire home Metallurg’s third and reach three figures from a KHL career that began at Neftekhimik before moving to Magnitogorsk in 2013-14.
That moment ended Avtomobilist’s hopes, but the decisive scoring came rather earlier. After a goalless opening frame, with the visitor arguably shading the play, Metallurg took control with two goals early in the middle stanza. The first, a tap-in for Evgeny Timkin, owed much to the enterprise of Denis Denisov. The D-man glided into a dangerous position in time to collect a pass from Denis Kokarev, then, rather than shooting himself, he slipped the puck across the front of the net to the unguarded Timkin for a routine finish.
Two minutes later, Sergei Mozyakin doubled the lead. Jan Kovar, in the deep slot, feinted to shoot before picking out Mozyakin on the doorstep. The captain’s initial effort was short of his usual deadly standards, but he made no mistake from the rebound and Magnitka had one skate in the conference semi-finals.
Avtomobilist has never made it past the first round of the playoffs, but the visitor was determined to make a game of it here. Yegor Milovzorov pulled a goal back midway through the game on a break-out play. After Metallurg turned over possession, the Avto forward exchanged passes with Pierre-Alexander Parenteau. For a moment, it seemed that the duo had played one pass too many, but Vasily Koshechkin could not quite get hold of Parenteau’s final effort and Milovzorov slid the puck into an empty net. That kept the team in the contest despite being comprehensively outshot in the middle frame, and the final stanza saw plenty of offense from the visitor. However, there was no way past Koshechkin, even when Michal Cajkovsky thundered in a string of shots on a power play after Dwight King had created an opening that Grigory Dronov could not, legally, deny. Metallurg had its chances too, however, with Andrei Chibisov hitting the bar before Osala secured the victory.
Magnitka joins Ak Bars and Traktor in the next round; the outcome of Wednesday’s decisive game between Salavat Yulaev and Avangard will determine the match-ups for the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
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