Yet again this KHL season, SKA Saint Petersburg and HC Sochi were scheduled on Saturday, November 4th to have the opening puck drop at the exact same time. We shall cover the former team’s result first. Despite head coach Roman Rotenberg having to serve a one-game suspension (with SKA also paying a fine and Rotenberg also having been fined earlier this year) for criticism of officials regarding his perception of their performance in the controversial matchup against Avangard Omsk, SKA Saint Petersburg were able to squeeze out a shootout win against Vityaz Moscow Region on the road (here’s a thread with some details about how Rotenberg saw and experienced his suspension), 3-2. This was no easy task for SKA as they entered the third period with a 2-0 deficit, seeming to face another frustrating loss where they had the advantage in several essential statistical categories (out-shooting Vityaz 20 to 12, beating them at the faceoff dot by a whopping 22 to 4, and out-hitting them 19 to 16) but not converting goal scoring opportunities against an inferior opponent. Five minutes into the final stanza, however, F Alex Galchenyuk began to turn the fortunes by drilling a one-timer past Vityaz G Maxim Dorozhko (with the primary and secondary assists going to D Alexander Nikishin and RW Marat Khairullin, respectively). D Sergei Sapego would tie the game with just under six minutes left via his first goal of the 2023-24 season (with assists from winger Sergei Tolchinsky and C Mikhail Vorobyov) and send it to overtime, marking the first time this year SKA had a game go unresolved in regulation. The extra frame offered no outcome, either, so the game went to a shootout. After starting the scoring, Galchenyuk ended up being the hero yet again, scoring both the goal that kept SKA alive and the eventual game-winning shot. Despite being down a coach, SKA Saint Petersburg got a very vital win, despite the arduous path to get there.

HC Sochi, meanwhile, found themselves on the wrong end of a two-goal deficit being erased and a game going to overtime in their matchup against Avangard Omsk. RW Matvei Michkov (PHI, 2023, 7th overall) was very vital to the Sochi offense, seeming to have the entire attack run through him. This showed on the stat sheet, as well, as he registered a primary assist on LW Artur Tyanulin’s strike to open the scoring late into the first (with the secondary assist going to C Marat Khusnutdinov, who seems to be clicking with this group just a bit more) and registering the second goal late into the second on the power play from a ridiculous angle (with assists going to D Danila Galenyuk and Tyanulin). These points would bring Matvei to 18 points in 19 games with Sochi this year. However, this lead would be eaten away at by Omsk LW Vladimir Tkachyov just before the second frame’s end, and would assist F Ryan Spooner (remember him, Bruins fans?) on the GTG a few minutes into the third stanza. This game would head to overtime, where there was some intrigue, as Avangard head coach Mikhail Kravets would pull a Sergei Fedorov and yanked netminder Andrei Mishurov to go 4-on-3. This nearly yielded a goalie goal by Sochi G Mikhail Berdin (which would have been a replication of him accomplishing this feat in the USHL), but it was not to be. Eventually, with Mishurov back in net, a turnover would yield the GWG by Spooner on an assist by winger Reid Boucher, and Sochi’s long and disappointing homestand ended with only a solitary point against Avangard.

The two teams covered in this series finally had their results have meaningful implications between them in the standings. While level on points, SKA has the advantage in the tiebreaker and is 7th in the West to Sochi’s 9th, with Severstal Cherepovets between the two. It remains interesting, however, to see Dmitry Kokorev’s group in the mix/on the bubble two months into the season a year removed from being dead last in the league by a sizable margin, and that a talented SKA team coached by Roman Rotenberg has produced fairly inconsistent results. That’s not even getting into Sochi putting up 5 goals against SKA and winning in both matchups between the two squads this year. Perhaps the fortunes will flip at least once more. With regards to their upcoming schedules, HC Sochi is next scheduled to face Salavat Yulaev Ufa on the road on Tuesday, November 7th before facing Dinamo Minsk in Belarus in a back-to-back on Thursday and Friday. This three-game road trip will pit them against one of the best teams in the KHL’s Eastern Conference and the 6th placed team in the West who won’t wow you with their roster talent, but are a strong group and have one of the best goalies in the league in the crease in the form of another Flyers prospect (78th overall, 2021) Alexei Kolosov. Therefore, if Sochi are to surge back ahead of SKA, it will be something of a test. With the way Matvei Michkov played, however, seeming to have fully recovered from the illness that briefly kept him out (even when he was still grappling with its effects, he did look solid out there but the improvement is marked), it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Sochi to take a few meaningful points from these games. For SKA, they will be taking on Spartak Moscow in the nation’s capital on Monday, November 6th, and their next two matchups taking them on an Eastern Conference road trip where they will face Traktor Chelyabinsk and HC Neftekhimik Nizhnekhamsk on Thursday and Saturday, respectively. Their schedule will therefore have them next face one of the best teams in the entire KHL (with Spartak sitting just one point behind Dynamo for tops in the Continental Cup race) and two somewhat middle of the pack teams in the East. I wouldn’t take either team lightly, however. Mind you, Traktor have a 3-0 record against the best team in the Eastern Conference (Metallurg Magnitogorsk) this season, including defeating them 5-1 in the two teams’ most recent matchup, and Neftekhimik defeated SKA 2-0 in the sole game between the two clubs in 2023-24. Not to mention, as discussed, we’ve seen SKA suffer frustrating defeats to inferior opponents several times already in this very down season by the club’s standards. They cannot afford to take these opponents lightly in their hunt for a higher playoff seed.