There was a LOT of KHL action on Tuesday, November 14th, and some real great battles. The marquee matchup was Dynamo vs. Spartak in a Moscow Rivalry matchup to determine first place in the Western Conference, with Spartak wasting no time in the extra stanza to claim victory and re-take the first place spot. However, it is a match that occurred earlier in the day and one that coincided with the capital city derby that we will focus on here. In an interconference matchup against one of the Eastern Conference’s best clubs, SKA Saint Petersburg faced some adversity in their matchup against Ak Bars Kazan. Their 2-0 lead that they accrued in pretty short order in the second period by way of goals by Vasili Glotov and Marat Khairullin would be erased in just about the same amount of time by way of Ak Bars pair of Artyoms (Lukoyanov and Galimov). However, the third period’s final stages would see the game-winner and an insurance goal scored by SKA, with Glotov striking again for the GWG and Valentin Zykov tallying an insurance goal. Sochi out-shot Ak Bars 41 to 20 in this matchup, therefore making it yet another game wherein head coach Roman Rotenberg’s group had a significant advantage in this area, but ended up in a close game. However, at least there was not a defeat to their name in this instance, as has often occurred this year, as well. They now sit in 5th place in the Eastern Conference, ahead of their Army Derby rivals CSKA Moscow on a regulation wins tiebreaker. Having been on the outside looking in, they have made quite the climb with their solid recent performances with victories in three straight games and four of their last five. Perhaps the course has finally been straightened for this often inconsistent, underperforming group to this point this year, and we will finally see them play up to their full potential.

HC Sochi, meanwhile, seem to have come to a complete halt. In their rematch against Vityaz Moscow Region, the finishing woes seem to continue, and that is to say nothing of their loss in possession in this game throughout much of the proceedings. A good demonstration of this could be found in the second period, where they were completely overwhelmed, and out-shot 13 to 4, yet surprisingly only allowed 1 goal (scored by Scott Wilson) as opposed to the two conceded in the first period (which happened just over a minute between each other) scored by Derek Barach and Alexander Yaremchuk despite being even in shots, 11 to 11. Sochi would turn it on somewhat in the final stanza, out-shooting Vityaz 18 to 14, but it did not yield many quality chances, and as was the case throughout the rest of the game, they largely did nothing with the opportunities they did create. They scored one consolation goal (with Kirill Rasskazov finding the back of the net on a helper by Daniil Avershin), but that would be it. Even their empty net play at the end yielded only one solid look/shot from Matvei Michkov (PHI, 7th overall, 2023) and even that went right into Vityaz G Maxim Dorozhko’s core and was gloved and frozen. Michkov would tally no points in this defeat despite his efforts, which included another Michigan goal attempt. He has performed quite well as of late despite being kept off of the score sheet, with the KHL’s denoting of him as one of the five best U23 players of the 2023-24 season’s ninth week of action and for good reason if you look at his stats within. However, his entry’s declaration of Sochi still having plenty of time to make the playoffs, even though their chances looked quite good for a while, is getting harder to see even if it is true in the most literal sense. With Sochi now having lost nine straight, with five straight regulation losses and only an OT loss point to their name for the 3-2 defeat against Avangard Omsk in the extra stanza in the final game of a long homestand to their name in that time (and their latest victory being their most recent triumph against SKA on October 27th), it is appearing that they have reverted to the franchise’s usual state. This very defeatist Diary of a Wimpy Kid meme that the team’s social media management had pre-planned to upload to Instagram in the event of another loss effectively tells the story about their current conditions. I do not act as a doomsayer here because they haven’t won in so long so much as because of what this most recent loss to the worst team in the Western Conference says about the group’s inability to learn and adopt better habits. They not only failed to improve, but actually performed WORSE than they did on Monday the 13th. At this point, were it not for his temperament and bedside manner being vastly different, I wouldn’t think it would be too far-fetched to imagine bench boss Dmitry Kokorev going on a rant akin to Jim E. Mora’s “PLAYOFFS?! Don’t talk about PLAYOFFS! You kiddin’ me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game!” press conference.

HC Sochi remain in ninth place for the timebeing, but sit just one point ahead of Kunlun Red Star (which speaks volumes given that Kunlun very recently earned their first regulation victory since September), though they do have three games in hand on them, and just two points ahead of Vityaz after successive defeats to them. Their next opponents are Lada Togliatti and CSKA Moscow on Thursday the 16th and Saturday the 18th, respectively, therefore meaning they have to face the best team in the Eastern Conference and a juggernaut who, despite their underperforming of expectations this year, are not an easy matchup ever and a team they have beaten only once in their history. It will be difficult to imagine they can even get so much a confidence boosting point, never mind a win, in either game. We’ll see if Michkov can surprise us, however. With the team’s struggles being no fault of his own as he has continued to produce and facilitate (to a ridiculous extent, especially for his age), we shall see if he really doubles down and has some magical multi-point nights to win games for them as has happened a couple of times when he has truly been on.