Game 6: Sunday, April 6th – SKA Arena

SKA 2-5 Dynamo Moscow

In a vacuum, this turn of events was fairly surprising on SKA’s part, but it seems to represent how their season and particularly this playoff series in which they were overmatched played out. They were the better team territorially by a significant margin in the first period. The 17-6 advantage in shots on goal was fairly representative of their possession advantage, but they did not finish their plays. In the second period, this only got worse, as Devils prospect Arseni Gritsyuk missed the net in all alone in a play that was emphasized in the game’s recap and some power play time saw them not getting good enough shots off, with Evgeny Kuznetsov notably missing the net altogether. All told, they would concede first off a tip-in by Maxim Dzhioshvili, but Valentin Zykov would score the game’s next two goals to give SKA the 2-1 edge (the latter of the two was tense, as it was reviewed for a potential hand pass before being upheld). They would waste some more power play time before the second period ended, but still lead 2-1 after 40 minutes of play.

The final stanza was catastrophic. Maxime Comtois scored very early into SKA’s return to even strength play shortly after the period had commenced, then Kirill Adamchuk gave the lead back to Dynamo with a shot from outside not long after. This was in line with how G Artemy Pleshkov had looked at his worst, so it truly was not surprising. Not too long after, Nikita Gusev sniped one past Pleshkov to make it 4-2 Dynamo. SKA would later be awarded a power play and pull Pleshkov to create a 6-on-4. However, this would be fruitless, and Dzhioshvili would eventually easily and effectively skate the puck into the empty net with just 54 seconds remaining. This marked the end of SKA’s season, and, in a sense, the end of an era for them.

Now, we effectively wait to see when Gritsyuk, Habs prospect Ivan Demidov, and Hurricanes prospect/SKA captain Alexander Nikishin will be headed to North America. Nevertheless, these players, alongside current Philadelphia Flyers Matvei Michkov and Alexei Kolosov were focal points of this series over the last couple of years. I thank them for making it interesting and making these games fun to watch and write about (and occasionally discuss on our podcast). With only Flyers goalie prospect Yegor Zavragin still in the KHL for next season (and beyond) out of my main individuals of note, KHL coverage will likely be scaled down and eventually phased out on Black Stitch Hockey in the coming few years to make room for other topics that are in high demand from the audience we are growing. Though this is not truly the end, I do feel as though this is the requiem for a major part of my creative endeavors on this website. It has been a great time, and I am thankful for the people I met and participated in dialogue with about this topic in relevant circles (particularly countless Hurricanes and Flyers fans about prospects from their respective teams). I especially want to thank Hockey News Hub for his hard work that made conducting this series easier, as well as promoting what I did within it so heavily. Whatever I continue to do in this vein, I am sure you, and everyone else who supported this, will be a part of the story as you have already been. Much gratitude.