Both HC Sochi and SKA Saint Petersburg were in action on Thursday, December 21st. HC Sochi took on Avangard Omsk in an interconference matchup. Absent RW Matvei Michkov (Philadelphia, 7th overall, 2023 NHL Entry Draft) and C Marat Khusnutdinov (Minnesota, 37th overall, 2020) for this road trip, the team had already taken a beatdown in their first game back from the 2023-24 KHL All-Star break, falling 7-2 to Michkov’s effective former club SKA Saint Petersburg for their first loss against them this year after taking both of the first two games by a 5-4 scoreline. This game would be much of the same, with Sochi on the receiving end of a phenomenal Avangard offensive explosion. The most noteworthy narrative about this game was that Avangard was phenomenal at playing with speed and both creating and finishing chances. They scored the first four goals of this matchup and the three stars of the match – Forwards Reid Boucher (first star recipient) and Ryan Spooner (third star) and D Damir Sharipzyanov (second) – had 5 points (2g, 3a), 3 points (2g, 1a), and 4 points (all assists) to their names, respectively. The defense of Avangard was good at shot suppression and only somewhat collapsed late in the game, conceding two late goals to Sochi, but they were meaningless, as Sochi bench boss Dmitry Kokorev’s group were felled 8-3 by Avangard. Definitely one to forget and to attempt to move on from in the final game of the road trip against Barys Astana on Saturday, the 23rd.

SKA, meanwhile, took on a classic rival in Army Derby opponents the Sergei Fedorov-coached CSKA Moscow, looking to satisfy their home crowd again in another home game after having hosted the All-Star festivities. They would end up delivering, as SKA would chase starting CSKA netminder Ivan Fedotov (playing in his first game since the IIHF rejected Fedotov and CSKA’s appeal of his contract with the Philadelphia Flyers being deemed valid, with Fedotov and CSKA therefore enacting in defiance of the board’s ruling) in another outstanding explosion of goals. Marat Khairullin would tally 5 points in this matchup as SKA defeated their capital city adversaries 6-2. The score was fairly one-sided throughout most of the game, but it was not short on excitement with the pace and back-and-forth in possession and offensive efforts by the two clubs. It is definitely a win to be satisfied with. SKA will look to build upon this result when taking on the Igor Larionov-coached Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday.

In player personnel news, Sochi is poised to soon get a big return in the form of one of their two major roster absentees. Matvei Michkov has been dealing with pneumonia, has not played since December 1st, and missed out in participating in the All-Star festivities. It appears now that he is poised to return very soon, as he posted video of himself training on-ice on his Instagram profile. We could see Michkov return to in-game action as soon as December 26th in Sochi’s return game against Admiral Vladivostok. Michkov has been extremely productive this year while rarely at optimal health. Getting him back at 100% is going to serve Sochi very well.