Yaroslavl Lokomotiv to win the Gagarin Cup draw
Lokomotiv came close to the title of the owner of the Gagarin Cup. In the fourth match of the final series of Play-OFF “Fonbet” of the KHL championship, he beat the “Tractor” on a foreign platform-3: 1-and with the same account led in the confrontation. The Yaroslavls can already get a prize on Wednesday if they overcome Chelyabinsk residents on their site.
This, apparently, was an illustration of the very situation when two very disciplined, very well -trained teams, having managed to study each other in three matches to every small detail, simply do not know what to surprise. And it turns out that the braid rests on a stone.
Although, who is a braid here, and who is a stone, of course, you won’t get it out. Both opponents in the attack spend approximately the same time, and the attacks themselves, even if they sometimes get to the gate, basically do not sincere with sharpness.
That is, there are throws, but all with resistance. Hence the deficiency of accuracy and power. Hence – and the absence of heads.
The goal was scored when one of the teams seemed to be a little carried away a little. He became carried away, buried in someone else’s zone, “Tractor”, and “Lokomotiv”, taking the puck, instantly turned the counterattack. Its ending has turned into an illustration of no longer a collective, but an individual class. The class put it in a pause, which Maxim Shalunov mocked over the treasured Yaroslavl plans to defend the defender Artem Blazhievsky. He seemed to have had to either leave for a long time or give a pass, but he did not give everything and did not throw it all, but gently rolled on. Blazhievsky eventually fell on the ice, and Shalunov shot at the far corner, where Maxim Berezkin was on duty. So the tradition of the current finale was broken.
In all previous matches, the invoice was opened by Tractor. Now he opened the “Lokomotiv”, about which everyone knows that if he is already leading, he becomes doubly strong, almost imperishable.
The Tractor, however, desperately tried to refute what seemed almost an axiom. In the game, one could guess what the coach Benois Grace spoke about his hockey players. The fact that you need to be even tougher is even tenacious – so that every contact is in favor of the hosts. And from tiny victories something big is sometimes born.
The fact that the « Tractor » added to density. Only for a long time this did not give any fruit. The Lokomotiv was ready for any turn, and his defense game was supposed to delight the eye of an advanced fan, used to finding beauty even where the ordinary fan finds enormous labor. Here is Maxim Shabanov, the most dangerous striker of the “tractor”, gets a puck on the blue line, accelerates, and the stadium is buzzing, thinking that it cannot be stopped. But the defender arises in the way and calmly slows down Shabanov. But at speed enters the zone Vasily Glotov. And in front of him is an open path to the gate. But no, this, of course, is an illusion. A barrier instantly occurs on the path.
But on Andrei Svetlakov, who won a place at the Yaroslavl Gate, there is an ideal transmission. However, he does not manage to do anything sensible with the puck, because Denis Alekseev knit on his arms and feet. This « locomotive » manages everything.
But it is also difficult for him. The Tractor at the end of the second period clamped for a minute for a minute of Yaroslavl in their zone – the colossal actually achievement for this final, and at the start of the final, the removal earned. But Lokomotiv resisted, and then slowly began to extinguish the Chelyabinsk impulse.
And he repaid thanks to the bold decision of Ilya Nikolaev. He threw the puck from the zero corner, but it grew. She bounced with a ricochet from the helmet of the goalkeeper of Zaka Fukale into the net.
Lokomotiv, as expected,, with a comfortable advantage, confidently crushed all the Chelyabinsk scum.
And the GRU, who saw that ordinary moves did not help, first removed Fukal on a bench for the sake of the sixth field player as much as six and a half minutes before the siren. And for almost three, the radical measure worked – Vladimir Tkachev corrected the partner’s pass on the patch, and the “Tractor” approached salvation. And then he became completely close to him, because in the last minute, Yaroslavets Byron Fras, who was poisoning with a club in the groin of Grigory Dronov, ran into the removal.
But it was not possible to escape. It was not a “tractor” scored, but his opponent: Alekseev hit his half into the empty gate.
Lokomotiv led in a series with a score of 3: 1, and to win it, he lacks only one win. He can already become the owner of the Gagarin Cup on Wednesday, when in the fifth match the Tractor will accept on its site.
