Shipachev Shines with Hat Trick: Dynamo Minsk Dominates Avangard in KHL Showdown

Avangard had to play the next game of the home series against Dynamo Minsk. Again absent from Omsk in this meeting Nikolai Prokhorkin, but he made his first visit after returning to Omsk Nail Yakupov, named in the second three by Ilya Reinhardt And Alexander Yaremchuk. For the residents of Minsk, after a dry loss in Mytishchi from Kunlun Red Star, he returned to the lineup Andrey Stas, and took place in the goal Andrey Tikhomirov.

The game started with a takedown Vadim Shipachev of charge. Avangard could not punish the best scorer in the history of the KHL for a dangerous play with a high stick, but soon he opened the scoring with the same strength. During the shift change, found Yaremchuk with a pass Igor Martynov, accelerating on the left, and a Belarusian striker scored against the Belarusian team with a good throw.

After conceding the puck, the Minsk team picked up the pace, took control of the puck and put good pressure on the Hawks defense and goalkeeper. Pavla Khomchenko. Dynamo’s attacks were sharp, often had a second tempo, and once Egor Borisov hit the post with a direct throw. The hosts did not concede a goal before the break, but from the start of the second period the Minsk team continued to press, and in the second minute of the period Shipachev found himself alone in the backfield and beat Khomchenko , balancing the score.

Then the Minsk team made several more decisive moves, while Avangard had difficulty settling the game and moving on to an independent formation. But the guests had a clear advantage in speed and in winning the fight, and in the middle of the time he gave a second beautiful goal. Shipachev made a wonderful pass to an empty goal in the spot Vadim Moroz, and he did not lose.

“Dynamo” did not rest on this and continued to spin the carousel in the Omsk zone, forcing one move after another. True, the first time, when the guests got out of the pressure and got to the goal of Tikhomirov, Rida Bushe An amazing moment arose, but Avangard’s best sniper failed to score with blank shots twice in a row. And the guests immediately punished for such waste: another positional attack by the Minsk team, delivering the puck to the spot, from there Christopher Tierney he just shot Khomchenko.

Avangard looked completely confused, but the Omsk team soon pulled one goal back. A powerful click Alexa Grant the stick hit Stas, and this rebound led to a goal. Angry at this turn, the guests sent the Omsk team around their zone at the end of this period, and Avangard literally survived to break them.

Alex Grant, defender of Avangard:

“At times we just looked pathetic. ” The enemy was in control, he didn’t give us a chance, we made one mistake after another, and the mistakes were simple. There are no complaints about our team, we have a great team, but for some reason we were not ready. The opponent came out charged, but we couldn’t find anything to answer. There are no complaints about the coaching staff either, we were ready for the game, and Dynamo did exactly what they warned us to do. Apparently, the psychological factor played a role; we weren’t that hungry for victory.

In the third period, the guests did not even think of giving up the initiative, and soon the situation from the second period was repeated. Yaremchuk missed a great chance in a rare attack in Omsk, and Minsk scored in response. Shipachev won the fight near the boards, passed it to Moroz, and scored a double with a brilliant throw.

After this goal, the Minsk team began to play the score calmly, giving Avangard high and not giving the guests any chance for meaningful attacks. Even in the power play that won Grant a little over four minutes before the siren, the “hawks” showed nothing at all.

Two minutes before the end of regular time, Avangard replaced the goalkeeper with the sixth field player, but the Omsk team immediately surrendered into an empty net. Shipachev scored a hat-trick of assists, and became the top scorer Roman Gorbunov.

Dmitry Kvartalnov, head coach of Dynamo Minsk:

– I think we played a good, complete game. We played very well in the second period, spending a lot of time in the opponent’s area. We scored three goals and almost went through, although we were at the end. But in general, we took the game to victory without any problems. I agree that Avangard’s first goal angered us. We played a bit wrong, but the team responded well. And I will tell you that the response to the second missed shot, which was hit by Stas’s stick, was also good. Otherwise, you know, everything could have turned upside down. I am happy with the way in which we dealt with the goals we agreed. What do you think about Shipachev’s game? He’s a good guy, he played very well in the last game too. But at this meeting the whole team played very well, Vadim did his duties on the bench, and showed his leadership qualities in the match with a good opponent. This is very important. His trio started playing, but in the last game we couldn’t get the boys out. We have to be angry to win, like in this game. You can’t play a little gray like in the last game. We are working on this, we want this. But there are many nuances that must be taken into account. We would like to have stability. However, good games are combined with some not so smart ones, this shows the class of the team. This is a question of psychology, this is a very big thing.

Sergei Zvyagin, head coach of Avangard:

– We can only count the first ten minutes of the game as an asset. We started well and scored. But then the opponent gave us away during the meeting. In other games that we looked good in terms of physics, we will look into the reasons. Of course, we lost in skating, speed and wrestling. This is a bit of a surprise as we had an extra day to prepare. We didn’t look at the table for many games, but we won the last game with Neftekhimik, and we started talking about how we could in the home series give ourselves a chance to enter the playoff field. We talked about it, it should be a big boost for us, but it didn’t work out.