Zvyagin impresses on Minsk return

9 March 2025

Dinamo Minsk 4 Kunlun Red Star 2

It feels like a riddle: which Minsk forward scored on Dinamo? The answer, of course, is our on-loan Stepan Zvyagin. The 20-year-old is spending this season with us as he looks for game time to develop his KHL skills. Today, in our fourth and final meeting with his parent club, Stepan scored a fine goal to remind his employer what he’s all about. However, that wasn’t enough for KRS to deny Dinamo a ninth consecutive victory.

After the shoot-out win at Spartak on Wednesday, Mikhail Kravets named an unchanged team for the trip to Minsk. Unfortunately, this game was already something of a dead rubber for out guys; Torpedo’s victory on Saturday ended any mathematical chance of a playoff spot. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to play for. This is pro sport and nobody wants to lose any game. Plus, there was a point to prove after a disappointing 2-6 reverse on our previous visit here barely a week ago.

Certainly, it was a fired-up first period from the Dragons. The team’s will-to-win was personified by a crunching – yet clean – hit from Adam Clendening on Alexander Volkov. The Minsk man didn’t take kindly to being dumped on his backside and leapt to his feet in time to cheap-shot Luke Lockhart and then start a fight with our forward. All of that earned him two separate ejections from the game. Clendening, meanwhile, got into a tangle with Nic Meloche. At the end of it all we had overcrowding in the penalty boxes and a KRS power play.

Away from the sin bin, we outshot Dinamo 15-8 through 20 minutes and spent 5:41 on the attack against 3:46. All that was missing was a goal. Danny O’Regan went close on the power play, then the Tyler Graovac line forced an almighty scrum on the paintwork as Vasily Demchenko clung on under pressure.

The balance of play changed in the second period and the home team began to offer more going forward. Avoiding any more major penalties obviously helped Dinamo and the home team got an early goal in the middle frame through Kristian Khenkel.

But Kunlun hit back to take the lead with two goals in 90 seconds. First, O’Regan tied it up when he redirected a Joey Duszak point shot beyond Demchenko’s reach. Then came Stepan Zvyagin, up against the club that loaned him to us at the start of the season. The play started deep in our zone, with Alexander Sharov tracking back to win possession. The turnaround from defense to offense was fast; slick passing through center ice saw Jan Drozg release Zvyagin beyond a stretched Dinamo defense. And, in front of the coaching staff he’s looking to impress ahead of next season, Stepan delivered a deadly finish.

However, that lead didn’t hold. Jeremy Smith made a spectacular stick save to deny Jordan Gross a tying goal but was beaten soon afterwards when Daniil Sotishvili stuffed one home from close range. Our bench challenged the play, feeling that Smitty was impeded, but the verdict went against us. That had KRS on the penalty kill – successfully – but the momentum moved in Minsk’s favor and Vadim Shipachyov scored just before the intermission to make it 3-2 at the break.

The third period never really got going for Red Star. Dinamo’s great run of recent form is no accident and Dmitry Kvartalnov’s team is notably hard to break down when it has a lead to defend. Here, we found ourselves confined to the perimeter and struggled to get good looks at Vasily Demchenko in the home net. And hopes of a late push were hit when Danny O’Regan took a penalty with four minutes to play. Dinamo converted the power play and opened a two-goal lead for the first time in the game.