SKA Starts Brightly in KHL Playoffs vs. CSKA

© RIA Novosti . Alexander Wilf / Go to the mediabankSKA St. Petersburg swept aside struggling CSKA Moscow 4-1 to win the first game of its KHL Western Conference playoff series and affirm its status as top Gagarin Cup contender.
SKA St. Petersburg swept aside struggling CSKA Moscow 4-1 to win the first game of its KHL Western Conference playoff series and affirm its status as top Gagarin Cup contender. - Sputnik International
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SKA St. Petersburg swept aside struggling CSKA Moscow 4-1 to win the first game of its KHL Western Conference playoff series and affirm its status as top Gagarin Cup contender.

SKA St. Petersburg swept aside struggling CSKA Moscow 4-1 to win the first game of its KHL Western Conference playoff series and affirm its status as top Gagarin Cup contender.

Elsewhere Wednesday, there were wins for all the other three higher-ranked teams playing on home ice, as Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod beat Dynamo Riga 7-3, Dynamo Moscow beat Dynamo Minsk 2-1 in overtime and Atlant Moscow Region beat Severstal Cherepovets 1-0.

SKA took an early 2-0 lead against fellow ex-Soviet Army team, thanks to first-period goals from Alexander Kucheryavenko and Ivan Nepryayev, before Alexander Yashin scored for the visitors.

The St. Petersburg team continued to dominate, adding further goals from former Atlanta Thrashers wing Evgeny Artyukhin and 20-year-old forward Vladimir Tarasenko to close out the match and take a 1-0 series lead.

Dynamo Riga faded in the later stages against Torpedo, after pulling back to 4-3 down early in the second period, while Torpedo’s Mikhail Varnakov grabbed a hat-trick.

Dynamo Moscow were level at the end of three periods against Dynamo Minsk, just as in their regular-season clash February 24, but unlike last week the Moscow team grabbed the win in overtime thanks to a goal from defenseman Ilya Gorokhov, his tenth for the team.

Atlant’s game with Severtal was goalless until 0:38, when ex-New York Rangers forward Nikolai Zherdev scored from a rebound to break the deadlock.

Thursday sees eight games in the KHL play-offs, as the western teams play their second fixture and the Eastern Conference play-off contenders meet for the first time.

 

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