Captain China settles nine-goal thriller
5 December 2023
Kunlun Red Star 5 HC Sochi 4
The Dragons are flying! Today’s OT win over Sochi makes it five victories from six games as our guys revived their playoff prospects. The bigger picture is still more encouraging – seven wins from 10 – and we’ve claimed some significant scalps in that time. After a gruelling first half of the season, Viktors Ignatjevs and his players can go into a well-earned break with plenty of confidence.
It took some grit and determination to get the better of a Sochi team in a similar position to us. The Leopards made a good start to the season, then hit a skid, but have shown signs of improvement recently. Ahead of the game, we were level on points and both sets of players were targeting a win to close the gap on eighth place. With Dinamo Minsk also picking up points recently, it was important not to let the distance to the playoff spots increase.
Kunlun got the first useful chance of the game when an early foul handed us a power play in the third minute. However, Sochi survived – and thrived, once back at full strength. Anton Sagadeyev opened the scoring in the sixth minute, something his team was unable to do in a 0-3 loss when we met on home ice back in September.
A second Dragons’ power play put things right in the 15th minute. Luke Lockhart drew defensemen towards him in front of the net, creating space for our forwards to exploit elsewhere in the zone. However, when the puck got to Luke, he shrugged off the attentions of the opposition and slid the puck through Mikhail Berdin’s pads to tie the scores. Then, before the intermission, Doyle Somerby put us up 2-1. Five seconds before the hooter, to be precise. Timing is big in hockey, after all. Doyle produced a delightful finish, stick-handling his way past two D-men to convert Parker Foo’s feed.
Early in the middle frame, Foo added a goal of his own to make it 3-1. Parker fired home a Colin Campbell set-up in the left-hand circle. That makes back-to-back two-point games for him, while Campbell goes to three points from two games. However, Sochi kept plugging away. Ildar Shiksatdarov got one back, but Austin Wong made it two goals in three games since he returned to the team. Somerby was involved again, halting Sochi’s attempts to clear its lines.
Unfortunately, the 4-2 lead was not enough to win it in regulation. Amir Gareyev got one back on the power play and Shiksatdarov tied it up with his second of the game five minutes from time.
Now we faced overtime, and big situations demand big players. First, Jeremy Smith kept us in the game with a fine glove save to deny last season’s loan signing Alex Perevalov. Then it was time to send for Captain China! Brandon Yip stepped up as only he can, stripping Vasily Machulin of the puck as Sochi tried to launch a fresh attack. Then he raced down the ice, holding off the attentions of Timur Khafizov, to squeeze a backhanded shot past Berdin to seal a third win in a row.
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