The teams started the match very actively. It seemed that the home team decided to play with five forwards. Goalkeeper Kunlun RS, Jeremy Smith, had a lot of work to do, which he did well. It's worth noting that the teams played for almost 6 minutes without stops. On 10 minutes Georgy Solyannikov rained on their parade. Tomas Jurco went up for a rendezvous with Demchenko, and Solyannikov had no choice but to foul. The referees announced a penalty shot in the Admiral’s goal, and Jurco converted the penalty shot - 1-0. A minute and a half later, Stepan Starkov equalized the scores. The new forward of the Sailors made a turn behind the home team's goal and sent the puck into the near corner - 1:1.
Honestly, Admiral slept through the start of the second period. Within two minutes, the puck was in Demchenko's goal twice. First Colin Campbell scored 2:1, and then Nail Yakupov fired a bullet that no one had time to react to - 3:1. The coaching staff replaced Demchenko with Konovalov. Yegor Petukhov cut the deficit, who tucked the puck just a little bit on the goal crease after Solyannikov's shot - 3:2.
In the third period, the Stars scored twice on Konovalov's goal, but one puck was not counted, because of high-sticking, 4:2. Match commentator Anton Vasyatin said, “Admiral is famous for not letting up even with this score.” And he was right. Yegor Petukhov scored twice on Smith's goal to make it 4-4. The game went into overtime. There, Nail Yakupov, the 2012 NHL Draft number one, showed all his skills again, scoring a double and bringing his team a victory. 5:4(OT) - Kunlun RS pulls out a win, and Admiral earns one point.
About the game:
1-0 (Kunlun RS).92 Jurco Tomas, penalty shootout. 1-1 (Admiral).18 Stepan Starkov, Assists: 78 Gutik Daniil, 16 Shen Pavel; 2-1 (Kunlun RS).71 Campbell Colin; 3-1 (Kunlun RS).65 Yakupov Nail, Assists: 74 Tyler Graovac; 3-2, (Admiral).15 Yegor Petukhov, Assists: 62 Georgy Solyannikov, 16 Pavel Shen. PP; 4-2, (Kunlun RS).92 Jurco Tomas, Assists: 8 Chartier Rourke, 11 Wilkie Chris; 4-3 (Admiral).15 Petukhov Yegor, assists: 78 Gutik Daniil, 16 Shen Pavel; 4-4 (Admiral).15 Petukhov Yegor, assists: 62 Solyannikov Georgy, 78 Gutik Daniil; 5-4 (Kunlun RS).74 Graovac Tyler, assistants: 65 Yakupov Nail.
Venue: Mytishchi Arena (Mytishchi).
1004 spectators
Chief referees: 20. Anton Gofman, 14. Lazarev Gleb
Line referees: 72. Buturlin Vladimir, 48. Bukharov Nikita
Press conference
Leonids Tambijevs, head coach of Admiral:
- I want to thank the guys for their character, they played till the end, pulled out a difficult match: they got back from 1:3 and 2:4 and took it to overtime. However, apparently, we gave a lot of energy and emotions during five-on-five, we lacked freshness in overtime. In the third period, we switched to three lines, the guys gave everything they had. Well done, they pulled the game out, thank them very much for the breakthrough, it's important for the formation of the team and the microclimate. I am satisfied with the guys for such an attitude to the business and the game. Quick goals that were conceded in the second period? I didn't like the third goal from the lost faceoff, because we sort them out a lot and work with them. We have to block such a shot, and Yakupov just shot there at point-blank range. Such a goal can break any team, we had to replace Demchenko not because he played poorly, but to shake the guys up. There will be changes in the lineup for the next match. Anton Sagadeyev, who returned from the waiver, is in the team. I think he will play for us in the near future.
Mikhail Kravets, head coach of Kunlun Red Star:
- We are glad that we won in overtime, it was not an easy game. We probably didn't play very well in the first period, thanks to our goalie Jeremy Smith for keeping us in the game. Then started to play more active, in the second period we let only three shots on our goal. I think we played good defense in the third frame, but we made some mistakes, so our opponents caught up with us. Admiral is a good team, they keep pushing, doing their job. We had a slightly different mindset compared to the game against Dynamo Moscow. But we decided that we were going to build on the good things, there are always mistakes, the main thing is how we correct them and what we accomplish. The team won, so we will take the best from this game and move on.
