From 0-3 to 4-3: Severstal stun Traktor after overtime in Cherepovets

Highlights

▶Key

Nineteen minutes. That is all Traktor Chelyabinsk needed to build a 3-0 lead at the Ice Palace — and, as it turned out, all the goals they would register all night.

Andrei Svetlakov struck at the 8th minute, Boris Katchouk made it 0-2 at the 13th from Mikhail Goryunov-Rolgizer, and Maxim Dzhioshvili added a third at the 19th, just before the first intermission. Severstal Cherepovets were staring at 0-3 with their 35-shot response still ahead of them. The home side worked through the gap steadily: Egor Stepanov opened the account at 25, fed by Alexander Skorenov, and Kirill Tankov pulled it back to 2-3 at the 29th off Vladimir Grudinin. When Thomas Gregoire connected at 45, with Stepanov again involved, the deficit was gone at 3-3. Neither power play converted on the night, Traktor's or Severstal's, both 0/2 — and with regulation unable to separate the sides, the 4-3 verdict fell to Severstal after overtime.

Grudinin finished with two assists and a plus-2 rating, the cleanest line on the ice. Stepanov collected a goal and an assist in the comeback, Tankov added the second. And then there is Henrik Haukeland: 32 saves in the Traktor net, more than the 24 made by Alexander Samoilov at the other end, yet the night ended with him on the losing side. Traktor held on through eight minutes of third-period pressure, but the equalizer came anyway, and the game slipped away in extra time.

A three-goal head start is the most fragile thing in hockey. Traktor will have the long trip home to think about exactly why.