Revenge is sweet

17 January 2024

Dinamo Minsk 2 Kunlun Red Star 5

One day after a heavy loss in Minsk, the Dragons bounced back in style. Three goals from the Foo brothers and a rousing fight from captain Brandon Yip helped secure a road win against the Bison, setting the record straight after last night’s disappointment.

There were changes following Tuesday’s reverse: Tyler Wong and Teemu Pulkkinen missed out, with Colin Campbell and Nolan Moyle replacing them. Jeremy Smith took over in goal from Matt Jurusik.

The early stages were close, but things started to go wrong midway through the first period. A power play goal put Dinamo in front, then a minute later Daniil Sotishvili doubled the lead. He produced a terrific dangle to do so and added to his goal from yesterday’s game. Indeed, the Minsk forward has now scored three of his six goals on us. Maybe he’d like to pick on someone else in future?

However, the game-changing incident happened a couple of minutes later. Turner Ottenbreit brought Dinamo captain Andrei Stas to a juddering halt with a huge, clean center ice hit. The incident was right in front of our bench, and Ottenbreit ended up going over the board. Stas, somewhat groggy, tried to drag him back onto the ice to remonstrate. Yipper immediately had his team-mate’s back and stood up for Otto in the subsequent brawl. The PIMs piled up on both sides and both captains were ejected from the game. Dinamo ended up with a five-minute power play, but seemed to lose some of their appetite for the battle as well.

The Dragons killed that major penalty and, just as the box was opening, Spencer Foo intercepted the puck in our zone and raced off to pull a goal back. By now, the momentum was swinging our way. The middle frame was evenly matched, but when it came to the crunch, Devin Brosseau produced the moment of quality to tie the scores.

Then, at the start of the third, the Foo brothers delivered the knock-out combination. Parker struck first, putting away the rebound after Ryan Merkley’s shot was blocked but stayed on the paint. Thirty-six seconds later, Spencer doubled the lead. Rob Hamilton’s point shot was charged down and, much as in the first period, Foozy was off to the races. He got away from Dmitry Deryabin and fired past Alexei Kolosov to chase the Dinamo goalie from his net.

Spencer might have claimed a hat-trick, but incoming goalie Dylan Ferguson denied him. At the other end, Smitty had to look alert to make a big pad save that preserved our two-goal cushion. Finally, with 2:16 on the clock, Dinamo moved to six skaters. No goalie? No problem: Brosseau took advantage to score into the empty net and complete a morale-boosting win.

Next up, we’re off to St. Petersburg to face SKA on Friday. The same day also sees KRS Shenzhen begin their playoff semi-final against Beijing in the Chinese Women’s Hockey League.