Ice Hockey: Avangard stops traktor in its tracks

An overtime strike from defenseman Nikita Pivtsakin earned Avangard Omsk a 3-2 away win at Traktor Chelyabinsk and leveled the Eastern Conference final at 1-1 Saturday. Avangard will have home advantage against the regular-season champion for the third and fourth games of the series, after Traktor won the first encounter 3-1 on Thursday. With Traktor posting 33 shots to Avangard’s 29, the match was more even than the first game, when Avangard lost despite dominating for long periods. Dmitry Semin gave Traktor an early lead with his strike after two-and-a-half minutes from Anton Kuryanov’s assist, before Evgeny Kuznetsov leveled the scores seven minutes later. Kuznetsov grabbed his second on 35 minutes with an assist by Dmitry Ryabikin. Thirty seconds into the third period, Alexander Perelozhkin struck back for Avangard, and with no other goals in regular time, his strike was enough to take the game to overtime. The first 20 minutes of overtime were cagey, with the teams posting 12 shots between them, before Pivtsakin scored from Roman Cervenka’s assist six minutes into the second period of overtime. Avangard will host Traktor on Monday and Wednesday, before the action returns to Chelyabinsk on Friday. In the Western Conference final, Dynamo Moscow holds a shock 2-0 series lead over SKA St. Petersburg after winning both away games this week. The series continues in Moscow on Sunday.