Astana's hockey club Barys suffered a shootout loss to SKA-VMF 1:2 in the second round of the Nikolai Puchkov Memorial tournament in St. Petersburg. The game ended 1:1 in regulation and overtime, reports infohub.kz.
In the opening game against SKA, the Astana team managed to tie the score late in the third period thanks to a goal by Vsevolod Logvin – 1:1, but the army team won the shootout 2:0. In the second match, history repeated itself.
The second-round match, held on August 28, ended 2:1 in favor of SKA-VMF (shootout 1:0). At the 29th minute, Barys scored their second goal of the tournament: Thys Thompson, Day Logan, and Kirill Lyapunov combined for a goal finished by Lyapunov. With 13 seconds left in the second period, Nikita Suraev converted a power play to tie the game at 1:1.
Barys' coaching staff, led by Mikhail Kravets, unlike in the first match, did not register most of the legionnaires for the game against the VHL team. Andrei Shutov guarded the net instead of Hunter Shepard. The Kazakhs tried hard, but the match again went to overtime and then to a shootout, where Shutov was replaced by Vladislav Nurek.
However, luck again turned away from the Astana team: Batyrlan Muratov, Asanali Sarkenov, and Thys Thompson failed to beat the home goaltender Denis Popov. Unlike Maxim Kazakov, who scored against Nurek. Final score – 2:1 in favor of SKA-VMF.
Tonight, SKA will play against Admiral, who defeated SKA-VMF 2:1 in the first round. The winners and medalists will be determined tomorrow after the matches Barys – Admiral and SKA – SKA-VMF.
The traditional pre-season tournament is dedicated to the memory of the legendary goaltender of Leningrad SKA, Moscow VVS MVO, CSKA, Dynamo, and the USSR national team, 1956 Olympic champion Nikolai Puchkov. The memorial was revived in 2014, and previously took place from 1999 to 2008. Over the years, the tournament has featured Moscow Dynamo, Kazan Ak Bars, Cherepovets Severstal, Novosibirsk Sibir, and other clubs. In the tournament's history, the hosts have won eight times, Finnish Jokerit twice, and Omsk Avangard and Yekaterinburg Avtomobilist once each.