There was a bit more of a delay in getting this out due to different variables and behind the scenes activity than anticipated this week. However, I was keeping up with the happenings (not to be confused with the Joneses) in the 2023-24 KHL season and watched plenty of games. Here are some quick hit run-downs on what happened in the most noteworthy matches of the last several days.

On Tuesday, November 28th, SKA Saint Petersburg defeated intraconference rivals Dynamo Moscow 5-3 in a game that featured a fair amount of sturm und drang. The score was tied 3-3 in the third period when D Anton Malyshev was assessed a five-minute major for interference for a hit on D Alexander Nikishin (CAR, 69th overall, 2020 NHL Entry Draft) that sent Nikishin to the dressing room, though he would return before Malyshev’s penalty even expired. In this time period, Marat Khairullin would score twice for SKA, once on the man advantage and again during a four-on-four stretch where Borna Rendulic was serving two minutes for a too many men on the ice infraction by SKA. Therefore, this penalty served as the difference maker in an intense game that extended head coach Roman Rotenberg’s group’s win streak to nine games.

On Wednesday, November 29th, Dinamo Minsk would draw first blood on the road against Sergei Fedorov’s CSKA Moscow squad and out-shoot them 33 to 29 (in addition to having 19 shot attempts blocked to 11 by CSKA), as well as narrowly win the faceoff battle 31 to 29 and out-hit the hosts 17 to 10, but would fall 5-3 in a game that had some exciting back-and-forth and would enter the final stanza knotted up 3-3. Meanwhile, Igor Larionov’s Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl began their game 30 minutes earlier, but would end up having the game conclude slightly later, as a game that was never dull but scoreless until the third period (as Lokomotiv would erase a 2-0 deficit just as quickly as it was built up by their opponents) would end up going to the shootout, which would be won by Larionov’s group in front of their home crowd. These games managed to be entertaining in very different ways, but to about the same extent, with perhaps a slight edge to Torpedo-Lokomotiv due to the drama involved.

In the Eastern Conference today (November 30th), the season-best 11 game win streak that brought Andrei Razin’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk to the top of the league standings/Continental Cup race would come to a close, as league bottom-dwellers Barys Astana would defeat them 5-2 in a game that never really felt in question despite Metallurg ending the game with the shots on net advantage. It was curious to see them so thoroughly outplayed by a team that is in their polar opposite positioning in both the conference and league standings, but it did seem as though, with some of the weaknesses they exhibited at times even during their tear, that this was always a possibility. There’s a reason why they play the games! On that note, in the Western Conference, Kunlun Red Star earned the victory that got them the ninth place spot (unseating Philadelphia Flyers prospect Matvei Michkov and HC Sochi from that position), defeating first-place Western team Spartak Moscow 5-3 in another game that was definitely not a fluke. What I did find curious about that game is that Spartak head coach Alexei Zhamnov opted not to pull G Dmitry Nikolayev (who replaced Andrei Karayev after Karayev conceded three goals on his first twenty shots faced) for an extra attacker in the game’s final stages, even though the added pressure could have helped. Perhaps something to learn from going down the road.

That covers it for every game I really kept an eye on this week. For our teams of primary focus in this series, HC Sochi and SKA Saint Petersburg both have intraconference opponents tomorrow in the forms of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl and Vityaz Moscow Region, respectively. Dmitry Kokorev and HC Sochi will look to get an upset of their own to get back into their former position on the Gagarin Cup playoff bubble and build upon their recent victory against Amur Khabarovsk on Sunday, the 26th, and SKA will seek to grow their win streak to 10 as they continue their hunt for an ideal playoff seeding. We shall see if both teams get what they are seeking.