The final series of the Gagarin Cup-2023 began in Kazan. The main event in the start list was the absence of Andrey Svetlakov from CSKA. One of the leaders of the CSKA team missed his first match of the season. In the first period, the teams showed good speed and interesting hockey. Ak Bars was the first to achieve success. Kazan opened the score short-handed, Artem Lukoyanov took advantage of the opponent's mistake, went one-on-one with Adam Reideborn and made an accurate throw. CSKA responded quite quickly, a few minutes later CSKA team gained power play and used it. Although formally, the Ak Bars player has already left the penalty box bench during Mikhail Grigorenko's scoring shot. In the last minutes of the period, CSKA strenghtened the attack, and the hosts narrowly avoided the second missed goal.
After the break, the score changed again due to dissmissal. This time, the power play was converted by Ak Bars. Stanislav Galiev definitely hit the to corner. In the second period, the hosts created several more dangerous moments, in one of them the crossbar helped Reideborn. Ak Bars spent a lot of time in our zone, the defense of CSKA had a difficult time, and nevertheless it coped with all the threats.
In the third period, the situation became even more complicated for our team. Ak Bars ran away in a quick counterattack, Reideborn repelled the first throw, Vladislav Provolnev selflessly rushed under the puck on finishing, but another attempt from Dmitry Voronkov was still crowned with success. Kirill Panyukov scored in the 53rd minute, setting the final score of the match, 4:1. We are preparing for the return meeting on April 19.
