Regular-season champion Traktor Chelyabinsk suffered a blow in the playoffs with a surprise 5-2 defeat to lowly Yugra Khanty-Mansiisk in a night of shocks in the KHL’s Eastern Conference.
Elsewhere Friday, Ak Bars Kazan leveled its series with Salavat Yulaev Ufa at 1-1 with a 3-2 overtime win, Barys Astana hit back at Metallurg Magnitogorsk with a 4-1 win to level the series, and Avangard extended its lead over Amur Khabarovsk, scraping through a tight match 4-3.
Traktor’s form has been closely linked to the fortunes of former Atlanta Thrashers and KHL all-star goaltender Michael Garnett, who had little to do in Traktor’s 3-1 win over Yugra in the series opener but he had a night to forget in the second game.
The match was even at 2-2 going into the final period, before Yugra ran riot in the third, with goals from Igor Skorokhodov, Alexander Ryazantsev and Sergei Demagin.
In the clash between Gagarin Cup holder Salavat Yulaev and former champion Ak Bars, the team from Ufa had chances to take a 2-0 lead before returning to home ice Sunday, but tasted defeat in overtime.
The decisive goal came from former Dallas Stars forward Niko Kapanen, who shot past fellow NHL veteran Erik Ersberg after powering forward from a face-off.
Barys Astana controlled its game with Metallurg from the start to leave the series level when the KHL’s only Kazakh team play on home ice.
Metallurg canceled out Barys’ opener with an equalizer from Daniil Markov early in the second period, but had no way back when Talgat Zhailauov made the scores 3-1 just ten minutes later, before an late empty-net goal from former Calgary Flames center Dustin Boyd.
The shocks elsewhere left Avangard the only Eastern Conference team with a 2-0 lead, but they had to fight for it against a determined Amur team.
2011 KHL top scorer Roman Cervenka was the hero for the hosts, scoring to level the scores at 1-1 after Alexei Kopeikin’s early goal for Amur, then setting up Alexander Perezhogin for another equalizer at 3-3.
Long-time Avangard player Alexander Popov burst clear of the Amur pack with 1:20 left on the clock to help the hosts avoid overtime.
