Traktor advances to semi-final, Dynamo edges ahead of Ak Bars

Traktor became the first team to reach the 2025 Gagarin Cup semi-finals after wrapping up its series against Dinamo Minsk in five games. A 3-1 win in Chelyabinsk saw Benoit Groulx’s team through the final four for the second year running. In Sunday’s other action, Dynamo Moscow recorded the first home victory of its series against Ak Bars and leads 3-2 ahead of the return to Kazan on Tuesday.

Kravtsov double sees Traktor progress

Traktor Chelyabinsk 3 Dinamo Minsk 1 (0-0, 0-0, 3-1)

(Traktor wins the series 4-1)

After two periods, the teams were locked at 0-0. Between them, Traktor and Dinamo had fired 38 shots on goal but Andrei Tikhomirov and Zach Fucale dealt with them all.

The tension was rising. The Belarusians, down 1-3 in the series, had no margin for error. Traktor, meanwhile, knew that defeat would bring a tricky trip to Minsk where a fired-up home crowd would be desperate to keep the series alive. It wasn’t that the game was cautious, exactly. Both teams attacked, but they did so with one foot over the brake pedal and tried to minimize the risk of a counter.

Tikhomirov was a surprise pick for the visitor. He had just two minutes of playoff action this season and his last full outing came back on March 15 in a shoot-out loss against Salavat Yulaev. However, regular starter Vasily Demchenko seemed to be struggling against his hometown team, returning a poor save percentage in his last three games. With that in mind, Dmitry Kvartalnov switched things up and gave Tikhomirov has first playoff start for two years.

Kvartalnov had further problems: Vadim Shipachyov and Alexander Volkov, key parts of his offense, were still out injured.

For Traktor an injury to Grigory Dronov, the second highest-scoring defenseman in the playoffs, was a blow. Arseny Koromyslov found his game time upped to compensate Dronov’s minutes but was hardly expected to match his scoring. However, the promising blue liner responded well. On top of a strong defensive showing, he also collected an assist on the opening goal.

That goal came in the 42nd minute. Traktor won an attacking face-off, Nikita Korostelyov fed the puck back to Koromyslov and his shot was touched home by Vitaly Kravtsov.

And Koromyslov continued to revel in his expanded role, doubling Traktor’s lead in the 45th minute when he fired home a Kravtsov pass. That was the first playoff goal of his career.

Now it was do-or-die for Dinamo. The Belarusians had once again fallen foul of their bad habit of conceding goals in quick succession and this time it pushed them to the brink of elimination.

Yet the story was not quite over. In the 51st minute, Minsk grabbed a lifeline when Nicolas Meloshe got the puck to the slot for Ilya Usov to score with an artistic backhand finish. Usov maintained his record of scoring in all five games in this series, but it wasn’t enough to give him a shot at stretching the run to six.

Inevitably, Dinamo called Tikhomirov to the bench late on. However, the visitor could not establish control in Traktor territory. Instead, an error presented Kravtsov with his second of the night to push the game out of reach.

Ak Bars fightback falls short

Dynamo Moscow 4 Ak Bars Kazan 3 (2-1, 2-0, 0-2)

(Dynamo leads the series 3-2)

An entertaining game in Moscow saw Dynamo move ahead in this series for the first time. Ak Bars clawed back two goals in the third period but could not finish its recovery and fell 3-4. The previous four games all went to the visiting team, and the Muscovites’ success on home ice puts Alexei Kudashov’s team one game away from advancing.

The teams traded quick goals at the start of this game. Artyom Sergeyev celebrated his birthday by putting Dynamo in front after two minutes, but Semyon Terekhov needed barely a minute to tie it up. That represented quite the start to the 23-year-old’s first playoff action of the season, as well as bringing the first post season point of his career.

After an explosive start, things cooled. The play was evenly matched but not exactly rich in scoring chances. The key moment came in the 15th minute when Ilya Safonov was assessed a holding minor. Dynamo’s power play clicked and Nikita Gusev restored the home lead with his first goal in this series.

Unlike Ak Bars, Dynamo looked clinical when it got the chance. Max Comtois thought he had extended the lead early in the second period but his effort was called back due to a kicking motion. Undaunted, the home team continued to press and unpicked the Kazan defense to the tune of two more goals. A defense-splitting combination presented Artyom Shvets-Rogovoi with an open net in the 28th minute, then Artyom Mikheyev finished off a solo breakaway to open a 4-1 lead. That prompted Anvar Gatiyatulin to bench starting goalie Timur Bilyalov and give Amir Miftakhov his first playoff action of the season.

Ak Bars’ defensive problems were joined by failings at the other end. There were chances to grab at least one badly-needed goal before the intermission, with Eric O’Dell producing the most egregious misfire, failing to pick up the puck when a power play goal seemed imminent. The quality of Dynamo’s finishing was underlined by the stats: 4-1 after two periods, yet the teams had 18 shots on goal apiece.

The third period brought more wasteful play from the visiting forwards: Safonov had a decent look, Dmitrij Jaskin might have put away the rebound from Kirill Semyonov’s effort and Alexander Barabanov also threatened. Gatiyatulin switched his lines in search of a breakthrough and was rewarded when Jaskin drew a penalty from Maxim Dzhioshvili. Having garnered his team a power play, the Ak Bars forward then took advantage with a shot from a dead angle that found the net off Vladislav Podyapolsky’s back.

After allowing that goal, Dynamo looked to block up center ice and starve the visiting attack of oxygen. That worked pretty well: Ak Bars had a couple of half chances after scoring, but struggled to create clear-cut opportunities until the final moments. Then Nic Petan reduced the deficit with 21 seconds to play and there was still time for O’Dell to ring the crossbar before Dynamo got a 4-3 verdict over the line.