SKA St. Petersburg has thrashed CSKA Moscow 5-0 to win the playoff series 4-1 and reach the KHL Western Conference semifinals.
Elsewhere, Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod took the edge against Dynamo Riga with a 4-3 victory on home ice that gives Torpedo a 3-2 series lead against the Latvian team.
Last year’s beaten Gagarin Cup finalists Atlant Moscow Region won 3-1 at home to Severstal Cherepovets to take the lead 3-2 in a series where the home team has won every game.
SKA dominated the Western Conference during the regular season and faced a CSKA side missing key players like Alexey Yashin and Ilya Zubov due to injury.
Within the first ten minutes, SKA had built a 2-0 lead with goals from two former Buffalo Sabres teammates, defenseman Dmitry Kalinin with the first strike on 2.34, before Maxim Afinogenov added the second seven minutes later.
Ex-New York Islanders wing Mattias Weinhandl added the third to settle the game before the end of the third period.
SKA’s Alexander Kucheryavenko and Andrey Pervushin struck to extend the St. Petersburg team’s lead, while goaltender Jakub Stepanek faced just 14 CSKA shots in a shutout win.
“Of course it’s very nice not to concede in a playoff match, but you have to say the most important thing is that we managed to get the win today,” Stepanek said.
Torpedo finished on top after a tight first period ended 3-2 in the home team’s favor, with forward Ilya Krikunov picking up a goal and an assist.
Mikhail Varnakov extended Torpedo’s lead to 4-2 midway through the second period.
Torpedo defended hard in the third period, allowing Dynamo only five shots, but could not prevent Janis Sprukts scoring a consolation goal.
Atlant left it late to beat Severstal, after its advantage from Nikolai Zherdev’s second-period strike was canceled out by Alexey Tsvetkov early in the third period.
Former Minnesota Wild wing Branko Radivojevic restored Atlant’s lead with ten minutes left on the clock and added to his tally with an empty-net goal 30 seconds from time.
Dynamo will host Torpedo on Thursday, when Atlant travels to Severstal.
On Sunday, Dynamo Moscow became the first Western Conference team to reach the semifinals when they completed a 4-0 series win over Dynamo Minsk.
