Ak Bars 5-2 Torpedo: Byvaltsev scores his 100th KHL goal

Ak Bars vs Torpedo, KHL, Monday, November 9, Tatneft Arena. Kazan won 5-2 and snapped a run of three straight defeats. Hockey is a game for the patient: three nights when nothing works, and on the fourth everything falls into place. Provided, of course, you give it a proper helping hand.

The help came early. Stepan Terekhov opened the scoring in the 7th minute, Albert Yarullin followed, and by the tenth minute it was 2-0. In the 12th, Igor Geraskin brought Torpedo back into the game, but that was as far as it went. Semyon Terekhov, Alexei Byvaltsev and Andrei Stas each added a goal, and only late on did Pavel Kraskovsky sweeten the evening a little for the visitors. Note that both Terekhov brothers, Stepan and Semyon, scored on the same night. A family affair, no other way to put it.

But the number of the night is one hundred. Alexei Byvaltsev's goal was the 100th of his KHL career. Round numbers rarely arrive with fanfare: an ordinary November game, an ordinary shot, and yet that line will stay in the forward's biography forever. For Anvar Gatiyatulin's team the goal came at just the right time, twice over: the losing streak is over, and it ended with conviction.

In the standings, Ak Bars, with 26 points, moved up to third place in the Eastern Conference. Torpedo, with 31 points, remain third in the West: the Nizhny Novgorod side lost but kept their position.

Ak Bars' next game is on November 12: the green derby in Ufa against Salavat Yulaev, puck drop at 17:00 Moscow time. A day earlier, Torpedo play away at CSKA: our preview of that game.