Dragons show character despite loss

3 October 2024

Vityaz Moscow Region 7 Kunlun Red Star 2

After a rough start in Balashikha, the Dragons showed character in the third period. Although it was too late to save the game, Nail Yakupov extended his productive streak to four games and Luke Lockhart scored on Vityaz for the third time in three meetings. That also ensured that our host did not get to claim a club record victory; marginal gains, perhaps, but psychologically important after a torrid 40 minutes.

Ahead of Thursday’s game there were changes on the Dragons’ roster. Chris Wilkie, who joined us in the summer, left the club. In his short time on the team, he played six games and contributed one assist. As one door closes, another opens, and Nolan Moyle came back to the team in time to play in tonight’s game. Moyle, 25, initially joined KRS after five seasons with University of Michigan. He played 55 games last season for 11 (4+7) points. Today he was added to the fourth line.

It didn’t take long for Moyle to make an impact, delivering a trademark hit on Vityaz defenseman Yegor Voronkov. But that was a rare bright spot in a rough first period for our guys. Vityaz rattled in three unanswered goals in the first nine minutes, chasing Jeremy Smith from his net as he made way for Kyle Keyser. That at least stopped the immediate crisis and it remained 0-3 through the intermission, but this was one of our toughest sessions of the season so far.

At the start of the second, things picked up a bit. For the first time in the game, we began to generate some pressure on the Vityaz net and had a couple of presentable scoring chances. However, Maxim Dorozhko stood up well for the home team and at the other end there was no luck for Keyser. Vityaz added a fourth with a freakish goal that bounced in off Ivan Savchik and, a minute later, Ivan Vorobyov added his second of the night. Lockhart missed a chance to reduce the arrears with a one-on-one breakaway but soon afterward there was a Vityaz power play and Fredrick Gauthier joined his team-mate on two goals.

Down by six, things could hardly get much worse. To the Dragons’ credit, everybody went out in the third period to salvage what they could from the evening. There was little realistic hope of saving the game, of course, but with three road games coming up next week it was important to try to put down a few markers.

Yakupov did just that in the 47^th minute with a power play goal. Tomas Jurco got the puck to the slot and as it bounced around, Nailer was on hand to stretch his productive streak to four games. Both players move on to eight points for the season, sharing the lead in team scoring in 2024/25.

There was also some historic significance in keeping the score to within five goals: Vityaz has never won a KHL game by six or more and after finding ourselves on a receiving end of an Admiral club record there was no wish to repeat that here. So when Alexander Daryin made it 7-1 late in the game, getting one back was a point of pride. Lockhart has previous when it comes to playing Vityaz and he took the responsibility here, collecting a Hudson Elynuik pass and scoring on the wraparound. That’s Luke’s third goal in three games against Vityaz and it proved enough to keep our name away from another unwanted record.