Avangard vs CSKA: will Army Men even the score?

Not many of us would predict that Avangard will reach the final of Gagarin Cup. But team managed to narrowly beat Ak Bars by a 4:3 score in the series and now is very close to a win over CSKA. We can remind you that team from Omsk secured a comeback win over a Moscow team (4:3 OT) and on an away game brought an excellent defensive performance and won again (2:0).

For the first time in the final series Hawks didn't concede a single goal, Simon Hrubec saved all 26 shots in his goal. We can note that Bob Hartley's team played exceptional during the last 20 minutes, they scored two goals and converted a power play.

CSKA had a very hard time during play-offs, they exhausted themselves in a series against Lokomotiv and against SKA as well. Possibly that is the main reason of team's failures now. They had a very disappointing defeat on away game and their team just failed to recover after it.

Igor Nikitin's team let too many counter-attacks to happen and paid for that. Army Men had many chances, but failed to convert them. Head coach tol about that at a press-conference after game and noted that «we didn't do enough for the win».