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KHL Gagarin Cup play-off 1st round recap |
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Today the last game of Gagarin Cup play-off first round was played - a game 7 between Avangard Omsk and Salavat Julaev Ufa and now we know everything that happened so far in the first round, so here we are to take a look.
Teams that advanced:
West:
SKA St.Petersburgh went through the 1st round with a 4:0 sweep, although most of the games were closer than expected and were better than what you could judge by the result of the series.
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl performed a sweep against Torpedo Nizhni-Novgorod, another series that the score doesn't reflect on, but no one is surprised about that 4-0.
CSKA Moscow and the 3rd sweep and 4-0 series in the Western conference against powerless Spartak Moscow, a team that happened to make playoffs but allowed 11 goals in one of the games.
Jokerit Helsinki had a rough go against HK Sochi dropping a game at home but Eeli Tolvanen was clutch to assign Jokerit to the 2nd round.
East:
AkBars Kazan went 4-1 in the 1st round against this seasons surprise - Khabarovsk Amur the only far-east/Asia team that qualified for the Gagarin Cup battle.
Metallurg Magnitogorsk had their struggles and wasn't as convincing as seasons prior to this after losing their defensive core and a first line forward during the off-season but still managed to get past Avtomobilist team.
The thriller of 1st round Salavat Julaev Ufa and Avangard Omsk went the length of seven games with Ben Scrivens and his Ufa team advancing after a high scoring affair in the whole series.
Traktor Chelyabinsk vs Neftehimik Nizhnekamsk was probably one of the most hardcore but boring battles, 4-1 as former Cup finalists Traktor advanced further.
Second round match-ups:
SKA - Lokomotive (Prediction: 6 game win for SKA)
CSKA - Jokerit (Prediction: 7 games and a win for Jokerit)
AkBars - Metallurg (Prediction: 5 games, AkBars win)
Ufa - Traktor (Prediction: 5 games Ufa)
Who stood out:
Linus Omark has always been the player of post-season in the KHL and he is at it once again finish the 1st round with 9 points (2G:7A) in 7 games.
Matt Gilroy isn't far behind Omark, both are tied for 9 points, although Omark has more goals (Gilroy is one behind) it's notable that Jokerit's player is a defenseman and absolutely excelled for his team in the early going.
We can't talk about KHL without mentioning Eeli Tolvanen - leads the league in goals so far with 5 in as many games.
Goaltending wise.. there is not much to talk about as the 1st round went exactly how it was supposed to at least in one conference but somebody stood out to me regardless and his stats were mind-blowing, without a doubt guy won't be able to hold these numbers for rest of the post-season but is hella good.
Ilya Sorokin (NYI prospect): 4 games, 4 wins, 98.8 sV%, 0.25 GAA and three shutouts while playing a grand total of 239:30.
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