First-period blast flattens Dragons

18 October 2024

Kunlun Red Star 0 HC Sochi 4

Unfortunately, this one was over almost before it began. Giving up three goals in two minutes early in the first period left the Dragons with a mountain to climb. Despite our guys steadying the ship after that, the task of recovering a big deficit proved too much.

There were some big misses on the Red Star roster again. Captain Spencer Foo remains unavailable, veteran Brandon Yip also sat this one out and the ‘C’ went to Adam Clendening for the second time this season. There were two changes from the defeat at home to Lokomotiv in midweek, with Jeremy Smith returning in place of Kyle Keyser and Yury Pautov taking the place of Ian McCoshen.

Our visitor arrived in the midst of a scandal following the controversial departure of forward Michal Kristof to Switzerland: although the Slovak international was making his debut for Langnau tonight, he is still under contract in the KHL.

In his absence, Sochi’s forward conjured up a first-period storm that left the Dragons reeling. The early exchanges had been fairly even, but when a turnover presented Artur Tyanulin with the opening goal, things escalated quickly. The next shift saw Sochi double the lead, and within two minutes we were down by three.

Mikhail Kravets called a time-out and kept faith with starting goalie Jeremy Smith. But Sochi continued to dominate the game and added another goal in the 14^th minute through Jesse Graham. It wasn’t until late in the frame that a couple of power plays gave our guys a chance to regain a foothold in the play, but we remained down 0-4 at the intermission.

Early in the second, Smith made a good save to halt Timur Khafizov. The visiting forward jumped out of the penalty box and straight onto the attack, leaving our defense trailing in his wake, but Smitty made the save. After that, we were more competitive in the middle frame and managed to outshoot Sochi through the session. However, the only player to get his name on the box scores was Tomas Jurco, who twice sat for tripping. In the middle of those penalties, Luke Lockhart had a shorthanded chance on the rush, but he couldn’t beat the Sochi goalie.

The third period was also scoreless. Again, we outshot the opposition but struggled to generate the chances or momentum that might have opened a path back into the game.

So, the first of six meetings with Sochi didn’t go our way tonight. But it’s only the start of the series. We’ll be playing the Leopards each month from now until the end of the season and we can expect a more competitive encounter in future games.