O’Regan, Duszak impress in high-scoring battle

8 December 2024

Kunlun Red Star 5 Sibir Novosibirsk 7

It’s difficult to know where to start with this one. At times, the Dragons played some of their best hockey of the season, with Danny O’Regan getting two goals to lead the charge. At other times, we struggled to cope with Sibir’s offense, and saw our former colleagues Trevor Murphy and Taylor Beck pile up the points against us. It all added up to a breathless game – but ultimately a frustrating result.

Perhaps the signs were there from the start. Red Star had a couple of good early chances, but Sibir scored from its first shot of the game. The next shift saw 2-0 against us, and Jeremy Smith left the game to make way for Kyle Keyser. By now, though, the visitor was hitting its stride. Pavel Gogolev scored twice before the end of the first period, assisted by Beck on both occasions. In between, Colin Campbell got us on the scoreboard, batting in a backhand shot from close range. But the first intermission arrived with our guys down 1-4.

That all changed after the break. It started with a power play goal from Joey Duszak, whose two-way contribution since arriving from Severstal has been impressive. That came in the 25^th minute when Tomas Jurco dished the puck off to the blue and Duszak strode to the top of the circle before unleashing a shot that Anton Krasotkin could not stop. By the end of the game, Joey would add two assists and move to 7 (1+6) points in six games for the Dragons. Good going by any standards, and great stuff from a defenseman.

O’Regan was the first beneficiary of a Duszak assist, converting another power play in the 35^th minute. The American defenseman produced a superb stretch pass to set up O’Regan for 3-4, while Keyser collected his first KHL helper on that play. And O’Regan stayed on the ice to tie the game on the very next shift, shooting home from the deep slot on a delayed penalty.

If it had stayed level until the intermission, things might have been very different. With the momentum behind us, the third period could have led us to victory, just as it did on Friday against Sochi. However, 70 seconds before the break Vladislav Kara put Sibir back in front.

Even so, down 4-5 was much better than down 1-4 and there was 20 minutes to put things right. Instead, the third frame began with a hammer blow. Hudson Elynuik was cited a penalty for checking to the head and, eight seconds later, Beck and Murphy combined for Andy Andreoff to make it 6-4. The game was still not out of reach, but a great chance went begging when Jan Drozg got the puck caught up in his skates with the goal at his mercy. Soon after, Murphy rubbed salt into that wound with a seventh goal for Sibir midway through the session.

There was a late consolation when Spencer Foo touched Adam Clendening’s shot past Krasotkin in the last minute, but it was too late to change the outcome. When a team scores five, it expects to win a hockey game. Unfortunately, tonight’s rollercoaster battle was a rare exception to that rule.