KHL 19.10. Metallurg Magnitogorsk - SKA St. Petersburg 18 Oct 2013, 15:00 Magnitka will try to stay undefeated at home after the big derby of KHL. SKA are extremely motivated in big matches Magnitogorsk have shown again on Wednesday that their arena is a fortress. In this season, including the preseason, they have played 13 home matches and won all of them. The hosts played seven times in the championship. Theyll try to defend the home court advantage once again. Magnitha have had a lot of problems on Wednesday. Atlant took the lead in the beginning, but by the end of the third period the hosts attackers, Mozyakin and Zaripov, took their team to the lead. Magnitogorsk had a two goal difference at times, but the team from Moscow complicated things in the final minute. The home team still managed to get three points. - Everyone played aggressively. Our opponents were a solid team who did not give up. Im especially happy with the performance of our younger players - coach Mike Keenan pointed out. He revealed that he did not use the attacker Denis Platonov because he was injured, while he didnt use Cal OReilly and Pavel Zdunov because of tactical reasons or, to be more specific, their bad shape. We can notice the Canadian expert decided to play with four back lines and 12 players in the offence, while its usual for coaches in KHL to play with seven defenders and 13 attackers. Regardless of that, Magnitka continued the series of winning at least one point to 12. Power play was their main strength because they took advantage of three out of six chances. Playing with a one man advantage against SKA should be their strong side because they are the best team in the league in this category with a 28,8% efficiency. The home team is relying on tradition before the match with St. Petersburg. Magnitogorsk defeated SKA every time in the last three season in front of their fans and scored four times each time. - We know who we are playing against. SKA s position shows it all. We have prepared and well know how to stop them. Well do everything to continue winning against them - said Zaripov. Russian hockey experts think SKA will have a much harder time in Magnitogorsk than in Chelyabinsk. - Magnitogorsk are on a higher level than Traktor and are capable of resisting SKA... The two best coaches in the league will face each other in this match - said hockey annalist Sergej Gimaev. SKA always do their best against strong opponents and lose their interest, even for winning, in matches against weaker opponents. They scored seven goals against the last year finalist Traktor in an away game. To win such a game after losing against a weak team like Admiral is a conformation of the above thesis of SKA geting turned on only by big matches, and one of these will be today against Magnitogorsk. The match against Traktor does not need any description and the result speaks for itself. They were a better team, they had more chances than the host, they were better in power play and defense and it all worked perfectly for them. They took the top position in the West with this win, but Dynamo is right behind them and they have to win today if they want to keep the leading position of the West conference. They have great stats, they are the most efficient team next to Barys, and they have great stats in playing with a one man disadvantage or advantage and are the best in the league in that. - We wanted to prove ourselves after a not so successful series of home matches. We may lose our heads at home, we try to score as much goals we can and forget about everything else. The next matches wont be easy, Magnitk is lead by a real expert, but we are going for the win - said SKAs attacker Vadim Shipachyov. All injured players are back so SKAs line up will be complete in an extremely important match like this one. Pick + 5,5 odds 2,08 bet 5/10 Pick + 5,0 odds 1,66 bet 7/10 Tractor Chelyabinsk - Atlant Mytishi 18 Oct 2013, 15:00 Tractor conceded as many as 20 goals in those three games. Goalie Michael Garnett has been in the goal in every encounter and he is evidently lacking some freshness, but they dont have a decent replacement Last year Tractor made it to the grand final mostly thanks to their excellent defensive play. This season, however, they are not on the required level so the results are not exactly great. The Chelyabinsk team has been going through a crisis. The excellent goalie Michael Garnett had saved his team from heavy defeats on numerous occasions but now that he is not in top form the home teams problems begin to surface. They have lost six of their last seven games. Today they will try to avoid their fourth consecutive defeat. The fact that they have conceded as many as 20 goals in their previous three matches sounds even worse. On Wednesday, in the match against SKA, midway through the game they were already five goals behind. Garnett had to be replaced yet again around the 30-minute mark. Until that moment he had conceded four goals. He is clearly missing freshness. However, he is still the first choice because Traktor havent got a better reserve option. Vladislav Fokin, for instance, conceded 3 goals from 11 attempts. It does make you wonder what the club management had been doing the whole summer. - I am ashamed of our performances in the last three games in which we have conceded 20 goals. Its way too much. We conceded 10 goals on our opponents powerplay. If we dont regain discipline in our game, than we will have difficulties making it to the playoffs - said frankly Valery Belousov, one of the oldest coaches in the league. He is particularly disappointed with the performance of some of his best players, such as Kontiola, Bulis and Kostitsyn. Their best forward, Evgeni Kuznetsov, has recently returned from a long pause due to injury, as has Lauris Darzanis, which means that these two cant be expected to perform brilliantly right away. Denis Abdullin made his debut against SKA but he failed to do anything worth mentioning in offense. Yevgeni Katichevs return to the line-up following his suspension is good news for Traktor. Despite having problems with numerous unavailable players and in addition to their decent results at home, Atlant demonstrated good hockey away at Magnitka. Their position in the table is not ideal, they are constantly on the verge of grabbing that last place that leads to the playoffs, but their game this season is not constant. Although they have a terrific team, they have been underperforming so far. They have been unconvincing, they exhibit oscillations and sometimes they are plain boring with their defensive, closed style of play that doesnt always lead them the right way. At Magnitka they took an early lead and then performed a suicide by amassing six penalties, after which they conceded three goals. Of course, with that statistic, three goals that they scored failed to make an impact. They have the worst powerplay of the league (6%), which is something the team of this quality needs to improve or otherwise they will risk being noncompetitive. Their gaem with one man down is not so bad, it is somewhere in lower average region, but their offense in general has been far from convincing. - Only hard work can help us to improve and achieve our objectives. The team has slowly been rising in form and even though we wont always win, we must show dedication and hard work. There were moments when we just had to score against Magnitka, but something went wrong again - said Sergej Shmelev, the Atlant forward. The are having huge injury problems, with their key defensive players Atyushov and Sanguinetti, and forwards Mihnov, Haataja and Mayorov missing, which will be a tough blow, but the fact that they performed decently in offense against Magnitka is something that should be taken into consideration. Pick 1st period X odds 2,45 bet 4/10 Pick 2 odds 3,01 bet 1/10
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 08:42:05 +0000
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