Amur 3-4 Salavat Yulaev: four unanswered goals bury a 3-0 lead in Khabarovsk

Highlights

▶Key

38 shots. 58 percent of the puck. A 3-0 lead by minute 24. Amur Khabarovsk produced all of it at Platinum Arena and still finished with nothing, undone by four unanswered Salavat Yulaev goals that turned a runaway into a 4-3 heist in Khabarovsk.

The hosts set the terms early. Dmitri Kostenko opened the scoring at 14, finished off by Grigoriy Kuzmin, and Amur carried a 1-0 lead into the first break while Salavat sat out two minors. Vyacheslav Voynov stretched it to 2-0 at 21 off Kirill Pilipenko, and Fyodor Khrapov made it 3-0 at 24 from Raul Akmaldinov's feed.

Then five minutes erased everything. Sheldon Rempal struck at 27 with Devin Brosseau assisting. Alexander Zharovsky cut it to 3-2 at 31 — Brosseau again. Denis Orlovich-Grudkov leveled at 32 from Maxim Kuznetsov, and the middle frame closed 3-3. Amur's three-goal cushion had lasted exactly three minutes of play.

The winner arrived at 42: Matthew Maggio, from Zharovsky, and it stood to the buzzer. Amur kept pushing but found no crack. They converted 2 of 4 power plays; Salavat went 0-for-1 and won anyway — volume without reward, one mistake away from costing everything.

Vyazovoy is the story of the night: 35 saves on 38 shots, the wall behind a performance in which his team was outshot by 14. Zharovsky finished with a goal and an assist, Brosseau set up two more, and Maxim Zagrebin closed plus-3. At the other end, Dmitri Kostenko scored Amur's first and finished minus-1 — the arithmetic of a blown lead.

Salavat never led until the 42nd minute. They didn't need to lead any longer than that.