One thing’s for certain when you look at the games from the past week in the K – our boys may not have individually lit things up, but their teams all had very nice weeks, culminating in SKA’s showcase game on ESPN against Sibir, even if Bob wasn’t in net for the shutout victory.
AA and Lokomotiv needed two shootouts and an OT period to do it, but they successfully swept all three games on their schedule this week with 3-2 SO wins over Mettalurg Magnitogorsk and Traktor Cheylabinsk, followed by a 4-3 OT win over Avtomobilist. AA brought home an assist against Avtomobilist, but was otherwise kept off the board.
Like Lokomotiv, Avangard swept their schedule, but they did it in regulation for each game, dropping Dinamo Riga 4-2, squeaking past Donbass 2-1, then hammering Spartak Moscow 5-3. Niki6 was scoreless in all three, but ended the week with a cumulative +4 and no PIMs.
As mentioned, Bob sat out the 2-0 win over Sibir, but he was in net for two of SKA’s four wins this week, surviving a rather crazy 6-5 win over Avtomobilist, then rebounding with a somewhat more sedate 4-2 victory over Mettalurg Novokuznetsk. He backed up Ilya Ezhov for SKA’s 7-3 demolition of Amur, then took the day off for the win over Sibir.
The Week Ahead:
Avangard will be at home against Severstal tomorrow, but SKA and Lokomotiv are idle until Monday, when Lokomotiv will hit the road to face Dynamo Moscow, SKA will host Atlant, and Avangard will be back in action to take on Dinamo Minsk.
On Wednesday, Avangard will host Vityaz, and we’ll see a Jacket on Jacket match when Lokomotiv welcomes SKA to their barn. Finally, on Friday, SKA will host Torpedo, and we’ll be back to let you know all the bloody details.
Who knows, perhaps we’ll be talking about the NHL / NHLPA coming to a new deal…or perhaps we’ll be talking about more players deciding to head overseas.