A hat-trick from 20-year-old Vladimir Tarasenko brought SKA St. Petersburg a step closer to the KHL Western Conference final with a 7-1 demolition of Atlant Moscow Region.
Last year’s beaten Gagarin Cup finalists were dominated by the big-spending St. Petersburg team, who took a 2-0 series lead.
In Thursday's other game, Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod leveled their series with Dynamo Moscow at 1-1, but had to wait for Vladimir Gazulin’s overtime goal for a 3-2 win.
In St. Petersburg, the home team took a 3-0 lead inside four minutes with two goals from Tarasenko and one from ex-New York Rangers forward Petr Prucha.
Tarasenko then turned provider, setting up Igor Makarov for SKA’s fourth on a power play with two minutes of the first period remaining.
Atlant coach Janne Karlsson replaced goaltender Konstantin Barulin with Dmitry Korchev, but he could not stop Toni Mortensson adding SKA’s fifth within three minutes of his introduction.
Branko Radivojevic scored a consolation goal for Atlant early in the third period, but goals from Andrey Pervyshin and Tarasenko completed the rout.
In Nizhny Novgorod, Mikhail Anisin’s early strike for Dynamo was canceled out by Juuso Hietnanen before the end of the first period.
Alexey Ugarov put the hosts ahead early in the second, only for Dominik Granjak to equalize ten minutes later.
A tense third period yielded no goals before Gazulin struck eight minutes into overtime to level the series.
Friday sees Avangard Omsk host Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Traktor Chelyabinsk play Ak Bars Kazan before Dynamo host Torpedo and Atlant play SKA on Friday.
