One word: Ouch.

While HC Sochi got off to a good start in their rematch of sorts against Severstal Cherepovets on Saturday, October 7th, it was all downhill from there. The team struck first with a little under 7 minutes remaining, as Artur Tyanulin buried one past Severstal G Dmitri Shugayev on a rebound from a shot by phenom/Flyers prospect (7th overall, 2023 NHL Entry Draft) Matvei Michkov (with the latter being correspondingly credited with a primary assist, his seventh assist and 12th point on the season). They subsequently allowed ten unanswered goals (including a hat-trick by F Nikita Korostelev and a brace by F Kirill Pilipenko, with both players also tallying an assist), with the home team allowing 6 goals (just 1 fewer than their demolishing by CSKA Moscow throughout that entire game) in the third stanza. Starting netminder Maxim Tretyak was chased after the 6th goal he allowed on 37 shots faced, with backup Nikita Bogdanov (Mikhail Berdin was not dressed for the match) faring even worse, allowing 4 goals on 10 shots the rest of the way. That 47 shots on net is in contrast with their own 19. While the team was not stuck in their own zone for an overwhelming amount of the match and had some decent puck movement, they decidedly lost the possession battle between those stats and their puck controlled time (14:33 to Severstal’s 21:32). Additionally, while they lost at the faceoff circle by a fairly narrow margin of 25 to 31, Amir Garayev was a nightmarish 3 for 14 at the dot. That is an unacceptable performance, and almost assuredly had a big hand in the defeat, which was the worst losing margin in Sochi franchise history. This was a day where Sochi commemorated the achievements of Soviet/Russian footballing icon Oleg Ivanovich Romantsev (a long time fan of HC Sochi who is noted for his achievements as a player and even more so a manger with Spartak Moscow’s FC in particular) and presented him with a personalized jersey adorned with the number 5 and ended up being a performance to forget rather than remember fondly. That said, Matvei Michkov was found signing autographs for young Sochi fans for quite a while afterwards, so it may already be in the rear view mirror. Hopefully, the team gathers themselves from here. The wheels seemed to be coming off more and more as the game went on. The team entered the first intermission down 2-1 while getting half as many shots on net as Tretyak faced in the crease, then were trailing 4-1 while being outshot 33 to 14 going into the final frame, which included them surrendering 6 goals on 14 shots. This disintegration is troublesome if it is indicative of declining performance going down the road.

The next game for HC Sochi is against CSKA Moscow at home on Monday, October 9th. The team is at an intriguing point in their 2023-24 KHL campaign given that, mostly by way of the covered horrendous defeats, they are at a -6 goal differential, but are ranked 3rd in the Western Conference, 2nd in the Bobrov Division, and 4th in the league/Continental Cup race. In a sense, one can compare them to the 2022 Minnesota Vikings in that they have been crushing it in mostly (fairly) close games (save for the 5-0 bruising of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl shortly before Michkov being loaned out to them again) and therefore have a fantastic record, but have been on the wrong end of some huge losses and have apparent weaknesses on their roster (does that make Matvei Justin Jefferson in this analogy? Let me know what you think). However, the KHL season is much longer than the NFL season, so there is room for optimism. We will see if Dmitry Kokorev’s group, with the help of one of the 10 greatest players in the league, can continue to punch above their weight and perhaps improve some of the more unflattering elements of their statistical profile.