how Russia lost to Sweden in the Karjala Cup – RT in Russian
The Russian national ice hockey team suffered a second defeat at the Karjala Cup in the Eurotour. The domestic team, which was temporarily headed by Sergei Zubov instead of Oleg Bratash, lost to Sweden with a score of 2: 4. The match was remembered for the debut puck of 16-year-old Matvey Michkov, which he threw in the lacrosse style, the accurate throw of Artyom Galimov, unforgivable mistakes in defense and unsuccessful majority draws.
The dry defeat of the Russian national team from Finland at the start of the Karjala Cup left not the most pleasant impression, but it was quite natural. The hosts of the first stage of Euro Hockey Tour have scored a roster that will not be ashamed to take to the post-Olympic world champion in 2022, while the domestic team came to the tournament for combat conditions for the youth championship of the planet. In such a situation, any result, even negative, still carried valuable information for the coaching staff.
However, the acting mentor of the Russian team, Oleg Bratash, failed to complete this experiment. The day after the match with the Finns, he was forced to leave the location of the national team for family reasons. The reins of the board went to Sergei Zubov, who recently finished working in Riga “Dynamo”.
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The new acting head coach first of all returned Yaroslav Askarov to the goalkeeper position. Bratash, even before the start of the tournament, promised to release him at the Karjala Cup, as happened last year, but Dmitry Shugaev missed three goals from the Finns in the first match.
The field players’ application for the game with Sweden has also undergone changes. Zubov changed half of the defenders and shuffled all the attacking links. First of all, it was worth noting the appearance of 16-year-old Matvey Michkov in the second three with Artyom Galimov and Nikita Tertyshny. The youngest hockey player in the history of the Russian national team seemed to have their hands untied so that he would get more playing time and more often tried to show his talent.
Although the Swedes beat the Czechs in their first meeting, they were not as formidable rivals as the Finns. In their condition there was only one representative of the KHL – SKA goalkeeper Lars Johansson. But in the game with Russia, he did not participate, gave way to Gustaf Lindvall – one of the many representatives of the Swedish championship.
The Russian team started the match cautiously and did not try to throw washers at the goal from the very first seconds. Even after the removal of Jacob de la Rose, who played in three NHL clubs, the initiative still remained with the Swedes. Askarov even had to play a couple of times, while Lindwall was still waiting for the first shots in his direction. They went only from the middle of the period, when Michkov broke through to someone else’s goal. The main talent of Russian hockey outplayed the goalkeeper in close combat, but missed the target a little.
Towards the end of the starting 20-minute, the Swedes also had a numerical advantage due to the removal of Galimov. In general, the Russian youth team did a good job of fighting off the attacks of “tre krunur”, but they didn’t have enough saved up to finish the period until the end. During the attack of the Swedes, Anton Bengtsson got ahead of Shakir Mukhamadullin and easily shot Askarov’s gate.
If at that moment someone in the Russian national team succumbed to despondency, then it was definitely not Michkov. With the beginning of the second period, he again began to actively annoy the Swedes and, as a result, created a real masterpiece. After catching a rebound from the side behind someone else’s goal, he put the puck on the hook of the stick and organized a lacrosse goal – the rarest way for hockey to upset the goalkeeper. Of course, Michkov became the youngest scorer in the history of the national team.
MICHKOOOOOOOV !!!!
Easily and naturally Matvey puts in lacrosse and compares the score at the very beginning of the second period! And yes, this is his first goal for the national team, 1: 1 pic.twitter.com/rFdJk44dHH– Hockey club SKA (@hcSKA) 13 November 2021
The Swedes were really angry at this audacity. They fell with all their might on other people’s possessions and quickly enough took the lead again. Again, the Russian team was let down by the defensive game – Askarov deflected a long-range shot by Kalle Shelina, but Karl Klingberg was on the rebound, rolling freely around the patch. He scored his second goal in the tournament. But the Russians also finally believed in their strength: less than a minute and a half, Sergei Telegin threw the puck forward, after which Galimov redirected it to the wrong goal. The handsome one allowed me to restore balance once again.
But the game was still something unattainable for the Russian team. She had to take a breath, and perhaps dry up the match until the third period, when it would already be possible to decide on the winner of the meeting. But Zubov’s wards tried to build on their success instead of fixing it, and ran into another return goal performed by Anton Lander, and again at the end of the period. At the same time, the Swedes put pressure on rivals, and he did not succumb to emotions.
In the third period, high speeds were maintained, but the throws became much less – only ten for both teams. The Russian Russian youth team had another chance to excel in most cases, but it did not even reach dangerous moments. In response, the Swedes organized another successful attack, which allowed Klingberg to issue a double. He set the final score of the match – 4: 2 in favor of Tre Kronur. On Sunday, the Russians will play against the Czechs.