Fiery notch in St. Petersburg – Galimov put poker “Ak Bars”! He came to SKA from Kazan

Less than a month is left before the start of the Gagarin Cup-2023, and the teams are fighting to the fullest – some for getting into the playoffs, others for the best seeding. But not everyone is in perfect shape right now.

Although SKA secured a victory in the regular season in advance, it suddenly stalled. Before Ak Bars, the team had a three-game losing streak – all in one goal (against Torpedo in shootouts). It seemed that the arrival of Kazan also did not bring anything good for SKA.

After the return of Zinuetula Bilyaletdinov, Ak Bars seemed to be reborn: 12 wins in the last 14 matches, and two defeats – with Sibir and Salavat Yulaev – and those with points. Such an incredible leap helped the team not only lead the Eastern Conference, but also revive hope among the fans for good chances in the fight for the Cup (who would have thought at the end of November, right?).

Fierce performance by Galimov

Ak Bars is in great shape, and SKA is in a small hole – the match definitely should have been interesting. But no one imagined how much: the teams staged a fiery shootout with 11 goals (3:3 in the first period!), Which was ruled by Emil Galiev. Forward Petersburgers designed poker!

In the first period, after the transfer of Yashkin, he accidentally sent the puck into the goal with his skate and equalized the score – 2:2.

At the end of the second period, after a powerful counterattack, he equalized again – 4:4.

In the third period, he shot Bilyalov’s gates – that’s a hat-trick.

In a 4-on-4 format, after a great solo pass, he put an end to the match.

This hasn’t happened in five years!

For Galimov, this is the first poker in the KHL, he became the first star of the match and generally got in good shape. He already has more points than last season – 12 against 10. By the way, SKA has not seen such a crazy performance from one player for five whole years.

“He had a desire to play for SKA, all the players themselves take the initiative to play for us,” Roman Rotenberg said at the post-match press conference. – He has a lot of good qualities, and today we saw the result that we expect from him, he can play like that in every match.

He has great skating and skill, he has character and hockey anger. But let’s not praise: he must understand that he has the potential to play much better. It’s too early to say that he is a “Tatar McDavid”, we just expect him to do better in the next matches.”

It turned out that Ak Bars did not need

But before SKA, Galimov spent a season at Ak Bars, scoring 21 points in 47 matches with a +9 utility indicator. There was a feeling that their union would last longer than one year, but the striker left Kazan – they could not agree on a salary.

“I remember they said that I had some kind of strained relationship with Emil Galimov, but everything was fine with us,” said Dmitry Kvartalnov, a former Kazan coach, in an interview with Business Online . – At some points, I, maybe, clung to him. We changed him a little – he never played in big teams. He did a good job – he worked and coped, but he definitely didn’t fonil. I sincerely wanted to keep him on the team.”

Who knows what would have happened if the striker ended up staying at Ak Bars, but it is obvious that now Galimov definitely does not regret anything.