“Chemist” - “Ak Bars” - 1: 2 OT. Account in the series: 1-3.
Hockey players near Moscow can only applaud. They fought like lions. They made Ak Bars nervous. Made to play in all seriousness. In Mytishchi we saw a real "Chemist". The one that should have seen the whole season, based on the composition. And somehow I can’t even believe that this same team played in the third round of the regular season. Honor and praise to Sergey Borisov, who very quickly managed to navigate in a very difficult situation. This is not to say that he managed to do something significant with the team. But he reassured, brought to his senses - already a lot.
The fact that Ak Bars finished the series in Mytishchi does him honor. These were two very difficult games. The fact that he was not ready, frankly, for another “Chemist” - a home sample, should be a lesson. And the lesson is very timely - already in the semifinals, the “leopards” may have to face a qualitatively different level of rivalry.
This is if everything goes according to plan and gets "Magnitogorsk". But the victory of CSKA in the only remaining quarterfinal series will practically open the way for Kazan to the “gold”. Because the “Vanguard” with the “Metallurgist” in this case will simply devour each other in the semifinals. And in Kazan, the winner will have nothing to do.
On a note
* “Chemist” suffered the first defeat in the playoffs on his ice. It was for him the last of this season.
* Ak Bars is the only semi-finalist to have missed the playoffs in every match so far.
* Sergey Zinoviev for the first time did not score a single ball for performance, but retained leadership in the playoff scorers dispute. He has 10 (4 + 6) points.
“Locomotive” - “Vanguard” - 3: 4 OT. Account in the series: 1-3.
Omsk in this match had the right to make a mistake. And they used it once. Nepryaev scored in the minority with the stunning inconsistency of three Avangard players at once - Ryabykin, Dew and Kalyuzhny. But it was an exclusively local error. The defeat in the match, and with it the continuation of the series Omsk did not allow. Although it seemed at the moment when the score was 2-0 in favor of the hosts that this right to make a mistake played a cruel joke with Avangard, it led to a lack of responsibility and concentration. Not. That was just an isolated case. A case that wards of Valery Belousov managed to fix.
The “locomotive” mistakes were too expensive. He was not mistaken - so obvious as the leading players of the Vanguard did. But Yaroslavl allowed themselves to pett stupid things - obviously, from nerves. For example, the guests scored the third goal when two Loko defenders went one way at once, and Rosa was alone in the other, opposite the empty corner of the goal. It was not some blatant blunder, just a little misunderstood the situation. But the consequences were dire.
After 3: 3, there was no need to talk about any tactical struggle that was present in this series from the first minute of the first match. There was already a clean fart there. And in overtime he usually takes the side of Belousov. Well, so it happened in Russia ...
On a note
* Vanguard won the eighth overtime in a playoff in a row. This winning series began back in 2004, in the final series with Magnitogorsk Metallurg, which brought the first gold in history to Omsk citizens. In the second match of the same series, Vanguard lost the last time in overtime (1: 2). It was April 5, 2004.
* Alexander Fomichev, who did not miss a single goal in his two previous matches in the playoffs, extended his “dry” series for a short time. Goal Konstantin Rudenko stopped her at around 133 minutes.
CSKA - “Salavat Yulaev” - 1: 0. Account in the series: 2-2.
The words in the headline of the interview with the forward of Salavat Yulaev, Ilya Zubov - “Stop making mistakes”, became the motto of the fourth match of the series. Both teams were very afraid to miss. Moreover, Ufa residents - even more. And that's why quite often four of them dug in at the border of their zone. And so, having seized the moment for the attack, they threw either inaccurate or ingenuous.
In this series, nothing is completely clear. And from the fifth game you can definitely expect any result. Well, except perhaps a major victory for one of the teams. Because if in the fourth match there was such careful hockey, then in the fifth and even more so nobody will risk it. But in the end, it's the playoffs. Abstracting from the level of the game, it should look something like this.
On a note
* As of today, Denis Parshin scored the first and last goals of CSKA in this playoff. In the interval, he failed to distinguish himself.
* CSKA for the first time in this playoff kept its goal intact. The “dry” match was recorded by Konstantin Simchuk.
* “Salavat Yulaev” also failed to score a goal for the first time.