HC Sochi’s last game was another victory by a 5-4 scoreline against SKA Saint Petersburg, a team that they had two noteworthy personnel exchanges with this season in the form of acquiring SKA young phenom RW Matvei Michkov (7th overall, Philadelphia Flyers, 2023 NHL Entry Draft) on loan for the second year in a row, in addition to relinquishing their then-top scorer Borna Rendulic by way of trade for assets that included F Marat Khusnutdinov (37th overall, Minnesota Wild, 2020). Whatever confidence they gained was not visible in their first matchup of two consecutive ones against Dynamo Moscow on Monday, October 30th, as they were out-shot 47 to 27, defeated at the draw 27 to 27, and out-hit 20 to 13, and defeated 6-1 by an overwhelming Dynamo offensive performance that really came alive in the third period. The first two periods were tight on the board, at least, as they ended with scorelines of 0-0 and 2-1 in favor of Dynamo, respectively (with Cedric Paquette’s even strength goal for Dynamo 5 minutes in being matched by Sergei Popov on the power play before Pavel Kudryavtsev get the advantage back for the visitors). Everything fell apart for Sochi in the final frame, as they conceded 4 goals to four different goal scorers (including Paquette getting his second of the night and Eric O’Dell scoring the goal that raised his points total to 21 in 21 games in the 2023-24 KHL season). G Mikhail Berdin put in a valiant effort, stopping 41 pucks, but his team did not deliver at preventing chances (notably, they blocked only two shots; this was also the case for Dynamo, but with them decidedly winning the possession battle, a lack of effort on that end of the ice didn’t really matter). Moreover, they also could not convert the good looks they did get. Michkov notably played on the first line today and made a perfect feed that was whiffed on. They also went to the sin bin 0 times to Dynamo’s five, but it did not amount to anything. It was that kind of day for head coach Dmitry Kokorev’s group.

HC Sochi face Dynamo in front of the home crowd in Olympic Park again at the same time tomorrow (Halloween). They assuredly will seek a different result as they remain ahead of Dinamo Minsk only by a tiebreaker and SKA by the solitary point advantage they earned via their recent victory over them. We shall see what happens in the rematch, after which there will only be two more games remaining before the team’s long and largely disappointing home stand ends and the team must depart for Ufa to face Salavat Yulaev prior to two road games against Dinamo Minsk.