Women’s Hockey Update: March 27th, 2018

Things get a little rivalrous between Agidel Ufa (in white) and Tornado Moscow Oblast during a game last week. (Image Source)

There was a lot of hockey played in the Women’s Hockey League over the past seven days, and we have recaps of it all, and some discussion of what it all signified for the upcoming playoffs and for the scoring race.  Do read on for that, and for the final resolution of the national Under-18 championship!

The week’s big series in the Women’s Hockey League took place up in Dmitrov last Wednesday and Thursday, as current league-leaders Agidel Ufa visited defending champions Tornado Moscow Oblast.  The first game between the two saw them play a cagey and scoreless first period, then combine for five goals in each of the last two.  This time, it would be Agidel coming out on top, as a goal and an assist each from Fanni Gasparics, Elina Mitrofanova, and Nicol Čupková paced them to a 6-4 victory.  Anna Shokhina responded with two goals for Tornado, but it was not enough on this day.  However, in the second game between the two, Tornado got their revenge.  Shokhina again scored twice for Tornado, as did Mariya Batalova, and the Moscow Oblast team found the net twice in the final minute to make sure of what ended as a 5-2 victory.  It was a bit closer than that to be sure, but the result meant that the series ended in an honourable split between the two arch-rivals.

With the rivalry series done, Agidel headed up to Ukhta to face Arktik-Universitet for a pair this past Sunday and Monday.  The Ukhta side came in having won just twice all season, although they have been heart-breakingly close on several other occasions.  But Game 1 between Agidel and Arktik-Universitet was not close at all.  Agidel led 5-1, helped by a pair of shorthanded goals, by late in the second period, and cruised on from there to a 6-2 victory.  The redoubtable Olga Sosina led the way with two goals, while Elina Mitrofanova contributed a goal and two assists.  The second meeting was  a thriller; Agidel looked to have matters fairly well in hand, leading 4-2 early in the third, before goals by Karina Verkhovtseva and Fanuza Kadirova suddenly produced a 4-4 tie.  But Agidel recovered to find a winner: Čupková’s second goal of the game with under four minutes to play sealed a 5-4 win, and once again Arktik-Universitet end up with hearts broken.

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Anna Shokhina. (Image Source)

Tornado too were back in action on Sunday and Monday, as SKIF Nizhny Novogorod paid them a visit in Dmitrov.  SKIF have been a real handful this season, and took the lead in Game 1.  However, Tornado’s Anna Shokhina has been on a real tear lately (see above), and she continued that trend with three assists.  Two of them came on goals by Alevtina Shtaryova, who herself also had two assists,  as the home side rallied to win 4-2.  And that was nothing compared to what Shokhina did in Game 2.  She and her line-mates — Shtaryova and Yelena Dergachyova — each scored twice, and Shokhina added four assists for a six-point night.  Shtaryova was just behind her with two goals and three assists, and while SKIF did not go away quietly, and the final score read 7-4 for Tornado, giving them a sweep of the two games.

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The other monstrously important series of the past week took place in St. Petersburg, where home team Dynamo welcomed a visit from Biryusa Krasnoyarsk for a pair of games likely to determine the fate of the final playoff spot in the league.  Dynamo’s big story of the year has been the play of goalie Valeriya Merkusheva; she would would write another chapter of that in Game 1.  The Biryusa, who came in in fifth place, out-shot Dynamo 32-21 for the game, Merkusheva stopped everything puck that came her way.  And, with less than two minutes left, Polina Yeliseyeva got her netminder the victory with the only goal in a dramatic 1-0 Dynamo victory.  The defeat, a crucial one, seemed to take some of the wind out of Biryusa’s sails.  Merkusheva had an easier time of it in Game 2; she faced just 22 shots this time, and her team got out to a 3-0 lead through 40 minutes and cruised from there to a 5-2 win.  Yevgeniya Dyupina and Yekaterina Smolina, with two goals apiece, were the big names on the scoresheet.  And so Dynamo collected the sweep, and we’ll see what that meant in a little bit.

Dynamo then wrapped up their regular season campaign on Sunday and Monday with two games against lowly SK Sverdlovsk Oblast.  Dynamo could expect to take both games at a trot, and they certainly did so in the first meeting.  The veteran Smolina scored a goal and added four assists, while Dyupina and Diana Kanayeva each had two goals as Dynamo took it 6-1.  The second game, however, was a different matter, as former Russian national team Yuliya Leskina was strong in the SKSO goal.  The match went scoreless past the halfway mark, before Dynamo finally broke through with a pair of goals by Svetlana Tkachenko.  Kanayeva added one late for a 3-0 Dynamo win, despite Leskina’s 30 saves.  Still, a creditable performance, all things considered, by SKSO.

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Arktik-Universitet (in green) get some pressure on SKIF goalie Valeriya Tarakanova. (Image Source)

One more series to deal with, and that one was played last Wednesday and Thursday, as SKIF visited Ukhta to face Arktik-Universitet.  The first game of the set was a classic — one of the best in the league this season.  The teams traded the lead back and forth, with neither side able to get ahead by two, and ended up tied 4-4 early in the third period.   Karoliina Rantamäki then gave SKIF a 5-4 advantage, and it appeared, as time ticked down, that that would suffice.  But with 1:17 left, and Arktik-Universitet on the powerplay, Fanuza Kadirova picked up her third point of the game as she set up Alsu Rakhimova for the equalizer.  That sent the game to overtime, which was scoreless but not without incident.  As the final horned sounded, SKIF’s Polina Bolgareva leveled Arktik-Universitet’s Liana Ganeyeva with a cross-check, and things boiled over.  When all was said and done, Bolgareva, Ganeyeva, and the latter’s team-mate Diana Bulatova were all ejected for fighting.  The game then proceeded to the shootout, where SKIF took it by a final score of 6-5.  It was a tremendous match, despite the unpleasantness at the end, and it must be said that Arktik-Universitet probably deserved better than just a single point.

Bolgareva, Ganeyeva, and Bulatova were all suspended for Game 2, and that proved a bigger hindrance to Arktik-Universitet than to their opponents.  Valeriya Tarakanova was solid in the SKIF net, stopping all 19 shots.  In the third period, SKIF’s Landish Falyakhova blew open a close contest by scoring a natural hat-trick in just over three minutes.  Here final goal, which made the score 5-0, triggered a goaltending change for Arktik-Universitet, as 17-year-old Tatyana Ogarkova picked up her first Women’s Hockey League minutes.  She kept a clean sheet the rest of the way, and it finished 5-0 for SKIF.

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The 2017-18 regular-season Women’s Hockey League champions! (Image Source)

So, a lot of hockey over the last seven days; what has it all meant to the standings?    First of all, it means “congratulations!” to Agidel Ufa, who clinch the regular-season title!  Agidel, with a record of 19-3 on the season, will have home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs as well.  This is the first regular-season title for Agidel, who were founded in 2010-11, so “well done” to coach Denis Afinogenov and the team!  As an interesting point of trivia, to the best of my knowledge forward Yekaterina Zakharova is the only player from the first Agidel team who is still on the squad (I am certainly willing to be corrected on that if I’m wrong).

The week’s results also mean that Tornado Moscow Oblast and Dynamo St. Petersburg have clinched playoff berths, leaving one still up for grabs.  That one like belongs to SKIF — Biryusa will pretty much need to win out in regulation (they have four games left), and hope that SKIF do not get two points from the remaining two games.  Biryusa’s remaining schedule has them at home for pairs of games against Tornado and Arktik-Universitet, while SKIF will likewise be at home to face Agidel.

Currently, the table looks like this:

Image Source

As mentioned above, it was a monster week for Tornado’s Anna Shokhina, culminating in that six-point game against SKIF, and that has thrown the league scoring race wide open again.  Shokhina had 15 points in four games last week (6-9-15), making her season line 17-24-41 in 20 games.  That suddenly puts her just two points behind Agidel’s Olga Sosina (22 gp, 19-24-43), who herself had six points, all goals, this past week.  Those six markers put Sosina one ahead of Biryusa’s Valeriya Pavlova in the goals race, and kept her two ahead of Shokhina.  So those contests are definitely still to be won or lost as the regular season moves into its final games!

The next week will see just three series of games: on Saturday and Sunday, Biryusa will host Tornado for a pair while SK Sverdlovsk Oblast play host to Arktik-Universitet.  Then, on Monday and Tuesday, Agidel visit Nizhny Novgorod to take on SKIF in the final regular-season games for both teams.  As mentioned, Dynamo St. Petersburg have already finished their regular season, and now await the playoffs.  The links above, as always, are to the YouTube channels that should be streaming those games.

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Last, but certainly not least, there was a national championship title handed out this past week in Russian women’s hockey, and it happened at the Under-18 level.  The national U18 championship played its fourth and final tournament of the season, with hosts SKIF Nizhny Novgorod U18 looking to wrap up a fourth straight title.  Their rival all season has been the Selects team from Moscow Oblast, containing numerous players in Tornado’s youth system.  Those two teams met on the first day of the tournament, and SKIF took an early lead through Alesandra Lidskaya, only for Varvara Boriskova to tie it up for Moscow Oblast.  However, with 13 minutes left in the third, Kristi Shashkina put SKIF back in front, and her goal would stand up as the winner not only of the game, but of the championship.  Both SKIF and Moscow Oblast ran the table for the rest of the six-game tournament, and the former thus finish on top with a season record of 23-1 and 66 points.  Moscow Oblast come in second, at 21-3 with 63 points, while well back in third place was the team from the Sergei Makarov Hockey School in Chelyabinsk, who went 15-9 and recorded 44 points.  You can see the entire standings and results for the season here (in Russian).

SKIF’s youngsters celebrate with the national championship trophy.  (Image Source)

So congratulations to SKIF Nizhny Novgorod U18, and head coach Andrei Anisimov!

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Thank you for reading!  Next week, updates on the Women’s Hockey League, and it is nearly time to start looking ahead to the Girls’ U16 European Championship, which is coming up in mid-April!