There isn’t really much to say about HC Sochi’s 5-3 defeat to Barys Astana today (October 20th). They had scoring opportunities (plentiful ones, at that) and out-shot Barys Astana 33 to 28 (in addition to having 12 of their shots blocked, in contrast with blocking 8 shots by Barys) and beat the visitors 33 to 29 at the faceoff dot. Sochi additionally had half as many PIMs (6 to 12), but they could not put the opposition away or prevent them from converting their chances. About the one bright spot in this very dreary game was that RW Matvei Michkov (PHI, 7th overall, 2023 NHL Entry Draft) scored with literally 1 second remaining in regulation in a situation where Barys was down 2 men due to penalties to maintain his point-per-game pace since being transferred to Sochi from SKA Saint Petersburg. There are still 5 games remaining in the long Sochi home stand and they have a week off until facing SKA Saint Petersburg, who they defeated the last time they faced off against one another in Michkov’s effective “revenge game”, but their form is not what it was earlier in the year, and if they are struggling to defeat inferior teams, then facing a good roster is going to be quite the challenge. Beyond this, RW/C Marat Khusnutdinov (MIN, 37th overall, 2020) still has yet to find an effective spot after his acquisition from SKA. Head coach Dmitry Kokorev placed him on the first line RW spot today, but it seemed to have no impact, as he had no shots on goal in 18:07 TOI. While he has been shuffled a few times now and grouped with different players, the touted Minnesota Wild prospect still has not clicked with his new team yet. Time will tell what it will look like when (or if) it does happen in the 2023-24 KHL season.

In good news, it was announced today that the KHL beat writers panel have granted Michkov a spot in the KHL All-Star Game in December. While his performance has been good enough to where he should have been selected by the fan vote, it is good to see that he will be participating, regardless of the means by which it happened. The soon-to-be 19-year-old has more than earned his place with his absurd offensive productivity and growing skill and commitment in the defensive zone (his intense dive/slide in an attempt to block a shot on the empty Sochi net towards the end of the game today being just one demonstration). Other relevant names to this series that will be playing in the game will be SKA G Nikita Serebryakov (fan vote) and D/Carolina Hurricanes prospect (69th overall, 2020) Alexander Nikishin (media selection). Neither one comes as a big surprise other than Nikishin, like Michkov, also probably should’ve gotten in through fan voting. He is arguably the best defenseman in the KHL right now, with his very Ray Bourque-esque set of skills in all zones and fantastic offensive productivity. That said, all of these men earned their spots, and it will be great to watch them in this event.

As it stands for Sochi, as noted, they will not be playing again until next Friday (October 27th), when taking on SKA yet again. After having dropped 4 in a row and 6 of their last 7, they currently sit 6th in the Western Conference, 3rd in the Bobrov Division, and 11th in the KHL standings/Continental Cup race. They currently sit just three points ahead of SKA. All potential “grudges” aside, the most important element of registering at least a point in that game is keeping pace ahead of them. A regulation loss in that game would have their efforts to maintain this respectable spot ahead of the defending Continental Cup champions in a very precarious position, even if SKA gathers no points between now and then. Sochi fans certainly hope that they can at least hold Roman Rotenberg’s crop at bay, if not emerge victorious against them yet again.