There weren’t a lot of games on tap for the KHL on Saturday, November 11th, but the few there were sure were solid matchups. Lada Togliatti (the cinderella first place team in the Eastern Conference, having been re-admitted to the KHL this season after having been expelled to the VHL as a cost-cutting measure, their second expulsion in their history) defeated Spartak Moscow, the also fairly unexpected first place team in the West coached to excellence by NHL alumni Alexei Zhamnov and Alexei Kovalev, 4-3 in a very well played and exciting shootout-resolved first game of the day. Additionally, Metallurg Magnitogorsk defeated Ak Bars Kazan 3-0 in a battle between two of the East’s best teams this year. Most relevantly to this series, however, Spartak were the only team in the Western Conference to play today other than SKA Saint Petersburg, giving SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg an opportunity to make an impact on the ladder. This ended up coming via an impressive barrage that happened in a matter of minutes. The visitors wrapped up the first stanza against HC Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk at home at the Ice Palace with three goals in a matter of a little over three minutes, with Borna Rendulic (assisted by Alex Galchenyuk and Maxim Fedotov) opening the scoring up with just over four minutes remaining and Mikhail Vorobyov (assists to Marat Khairullin and recent overtime hero Sergei Tolchinsky) following it up with another tally 22 seconds later, both goals on even strength. Vorobyov would close off the period with 48 seconds remaining on a power play goal with Rendulic getting the primary assist and Khairullin, then it didn’t take long for the trend to continue with blueline force Alexander Nikishin (CAR, 69th overall, 2020) making it 4-0 1 minute and 22 seconds into the second frame on assists by Tolchinsky and Valentin Zykov. While Vladimir Bryuvkin and Nail Yakupov would find the back of the net for Neftekhimik (both on the power play) before the second would end, this would be all the offense would find for the visitors from Tatarstan, as SKA would emerge victorious 4-2, marking their third victory in four games. Neftekhimik didn’t make it easy for SKA despite the avalanche of goals, with them only losing the faceoff battle 36 to 42 and in shots on net 36 to 29, but they could not muster a comeback. SKA G Nikita Serebryakov’s 27 saves on 29 shots was notably good for a .931 SV%.

With this victory, SKA put themselves in 6th in the Western Conference with 30 points, currently ahead of next closest CSKA Moscow and Severstal Cherepovets on the regulation wins tiebreaker. Their record is still nothing amazing, with as many regulation wins as regulation losses (13 each) alongside one win each in overtime and the shootout, but they will assuredly be content with the better seeding. They are now also solidly four points ahead of old friends Matvei Michkov (PHI, 7th overall, 2023) and Marat Khusnutindov (MIN, 37th overall, 2020) at HC Sochi. Sochi will take to the ice against Western Conference basement dwellers Vityaz Moscow Region in back-to-back games on Monday and Tuesday the 13th/14th. We shall see if bench boss Dmitry Kokorev and his group can use this opportunity to surge back into the playoff race and erase the points gap between them and the team that has formed an odd symbiosis/perceived by some rivalry with them. SKA, meanwhile, will try to sustain their forward movement against Ak Bars and Severstal on Tuesday and Thursday in their next couple of games. The next two matchups for both squads will most certainly be very vital in their pursuits.