New boys shine in comfortable win

14 August 2024

Kunlun Red Star 4 Spartak Moscow 1

Well, that was satisfying. A first win of the summer, first goals in KRS colors for Adam Clendenning and Tomas Jurco (in his latest spell on the team), an assist on debut for Nail Yakupov and a first helper from Martin Lefebvre, plus Rourke Chartier’s second point in two games. And a first win for goalie Konstantin Volkov after he joined us in the summer.

Yes, it’s fair to say the new-look Dragons are living up to early expectations. And the old guard isn’t too shabby either: Brandon Yip marked his first action of the summer with a goal, Spencer Foo found the net and Colin Campbell got an assist. All in all, a good day.

With the emphasis right now on gametime, there were a few changes from Monday’s game against Ak Bars. On defense, Yury Pautov took the place of Ryan Merkley. Up front, to accommodate Yakupov and Yip, Austin Wong and Hudson Elynuik sat this one out.

Spartak was playing its first game of the summer and Alexei Zhamnov went with a youthful roster. But the Red-and-White youngsters were not up to the task. Although the Muscovites had three power play chances in the opening frame, there was no way through a solid KRS penalty kill. And, at the other end, our forwards are developing that all-important chemistry.

After several good chances went begging, the opening goal arrived late in the session. Campbell got the puck out of the corner, and Foo wired one in from the right-hand circle to beat Dmitry Kulikov in the Spartak net.

The second period brought more Dragons dominance and a double blast of two goals in 14 seconds. First, Chartier kept the play alive after a dangerous raid and set up Jurco for a reminder of why we wanted him back on this time. Then came Clendenning with the first of what will hopefully be many goals. However, this was no traditional blue-line blast from a defenseman: Adam got into prime sniping position to convert a Yakupov feed to the right-hand circle.

It all looked very promising, and not even a third-period consolation goal for Spartak could take the shine off a good performance. Just to make sure, Yipper restored the three-goal lead a minute later to complete an impressive first victory of the pre-season.