Danny’s day as Dragons dominate in Sochi

11 March 2025

HC Sochi 2 Kunlun Red Star 5

Danny O’Regan had four points to lead the Dragons to victory on our final visit to Sochi this season. He opened the scoring, then assisted our next two goals, laying the foundations for a 5-2 win. Early in the third, Danny scored again before – in the 48^th minute! – another line got a turn. Jayden Halbgewachs made it five. The result secures the club record for goals in a regular season – now at 165 and counting, ahead of a previous best of 159.

Victory also set the record straight with Sochi. Early in the campaign we had trouble with the Leopards, but today’s win makes it three apiece from six meetings this season.

Much of the damage was done early in this game. In the sixth minute, Red Star scored two goals in 10 seconds to take control of proceedings. First, O’Regan sprinted away on the counterattack to be Nikita Tulinov in the home net. He stayed on the ice for the next shift and added an assist as Yaroslav Likhachyov doubled the lead 10 seconds later. That was a 10^th of the season for our on-loan Lokomotiv youngster.

Sochi responded by replacing Tulinov with Evgeny Volokhin. However, that didn’t do much to waken up the home offense. Although the teams had a fairly even share of attacking possession, we went to the intermission up 21-11 in shots on goal.

In the second period, the home team made a brighter start. However, Volokhin’s tripping penalty in the 24^th minute brought a power play goal for Colin Campbell – with O’Regan again among the assists. In keeping with the game’s general theme, one goal immediately led to another: this time Sochi pulled one back 14 seconds later.

There was no further scoring in the middle frame, but any thoughts of a home fightback were fully extinguished at the start of the third. O’Regan continued his big day – second goal, fourth point – after collecting the puck from Ian McCoshen behind the net and jumping out to score on the wraparound.

For once, there was no ‘twin’ for that goal. Instead, after a few minutes, Kunlun got its fifth when Tyler Graovac and Joey Duszak set up Halbgewachs on the breakaway. Graovac scored a hat-trick in this fixture when we met at the end of February and now has five goals and an assist on this opponent this season. It was almost 6+1, but Tyler’s 50^th-minute goal was whistled off following a bench challenge for offside.

There was still time for one more goal, but it went to Sochi and made the final result a repeat of our previous visit here. But that was a small blot on a good day as we look to finish the regular season as strongly as possible. Next up, it’s a trip to Magnitogorsk on Saturday to face the defending champion.