2023-12-12 23:14:58
The start of the match in terms of activity was left to the hosts, who imposed their hockey on Lokomotiv in a forceful manner, and even managed to open the scoring. At the equator of the starting period, Ilya Safonov turned out to be the fastest on the spot near Isaev’s goal – he corrected the flight of the puck to the near corner following a successful rebound from the boards for the Ak Bars forward – 0:1. “Lokomotiv” hit Bilyalov’s goal only 7 times in the first 20 minutes, which is unusually low for our team’s home matches.
Gradually, the pattern of the game began to change with the beginning of the second period. Now Igor Nikitin’s team had possession of the puck more often and locked the opponent in his zone with positional attacks. However, this did not lead to a large number of scoring chances. We can only remember a couple of good forward connections by Gernat (in one of the episodes he hit the goal frame with a low shot instead of an empty corner – author’s note), the resourcefulness of Kayumov and Likhachev on the spot, when they alternately tried to hit the near corner of the Kazan goal, and potentially a couple dangerous attempts to throw from But and Nikulin. To no avail. And soon the experienced “Ak Bars” began, through the individual efforts of its leaders, to pull the puck into the middle and someone else’s zone, which made the task even more difficult for the Yaroslavl team and, as they say in such cases, “buttoned up” hockey.
And yet, this evening “Lokomotiv” definitely did not deserve to lose. The “railroad workers” truly entered the final period as if it were their last battle, and the initiator of the chase was the hero of the game, Pavel Kraskovsky, who played his 500th career match for his home club! In the 44th minute, the hosts got the majority for the first time and immediately moved on to an active play in the opponent’s zone. At first, the Leopards forgot Kraskovsky on the left flank, but Pavel did not escalate, but preferred to pass to his partner. A few seconds later, he was now left alone at the opposite post and took the initiative: a pass to the center – a low throw under the far post and Bilyalov is powerless! Kraskovsky – 1:1 in the anniversary match!
Realizing that the iron had to be “forged” right now, while it was still hot, Lokomotiv once more rushed into the enemy zone. A couple more positional attacks and then Chekhovich makes a cool “blind” pass to Butu, and he throws it into the near corner and it’s already 2:1! “Accidents are not accidental,” “Arena-2000” sang to the beat of the popular ILO track, recently mentioned by Igor Nikitin at a press conference.
And on this musical and emotional wave, “Lokomotiv” threw another one! Once once more our team received the majority, and now there was a different combination, which included Shalunov, Likhachev and Kayumov. In the episode when the puck jumped onto the penny and Arthur made a shot, each of our forwards might have scored, but following a short showdown, the authorship of the goal was attributed to Yaroslav Likhachev. In flight, the puck touched his knee, soared into the air and fell over Bilyalov, and Maxim Shalunov, with active finishing attempts, simply did not allow the Ak Bars defenders to clear the projectile from the empty goal.
3:1 – retaining victory in such an emotional match was already a matter of principle, and our team coped with this task. Moreover, they might have thrown into an empty goal, but only at the cost of a foul a few seconds before the siren did the Kazan team stop Kayumov’s breakthrough. Well done, Yaroslavl residents! Our team goes into the championship break leading the Western Conference in points lost.
(Further…)
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#Lokomotiv #favor #extending #KHL #championship
