Second before the end of the sixth game of the Gagarin Cup final. The game is stopped, nothing will interfere with the decisive match in Magnitogorsk. A match that, in any case, will go down in history. And then the fight began. It would seem, why? Now she won’t do anything.

Now the word “miracle” revolves around the series. CSKA really did it. Going 1-3 in matches and 1-2 in scores with a little over six minutes left in the third period, the army team found the strength and saved the away match, returning the series home. And now the score in the series is equal.

Is Sergei Fedorov a genius? This is an open question. After all, he has only been coaching for the first year. And he immediately brought the team to the final, and now he is waiting for the second consecutive seven-match confrontation. Even though CSKA’s position seemed hopeless back on Sunday, going through the Metallurg defense was an impossible mission.

Photo: © Denis Bushkovsky / Match TV

Who will win the decisive meeting in Magnitogorsk? Muscovites have a psychological advantage now. And the defense of the Urals at the CSKA Arena looked completely different from the reinforced concrete structure that it was in previous Moscow matches. But it is also impossible to dismiss “Magnitogorsk” from the accounts. Their rivals, now, have already been dropped once – nothing, they returned. In general, one more question.

What there is no doubt about is that CSKA and Metallurg are fed up with each other to the point of incredible. Imagine what it’s like to play with the same opponent seven times in a row with a break of one day.

It all started with an uncivilized gesture by Ivan Fedotov towards someone from Magnitogorsk after the second game, where the Muscovites conceded a record six goals for themselves in this playoff. I wonder if the video with Fedotov was deliberately leaked to the network in order to finally destabilize the last frontier of the army? But in the end, the goalkeeper escaped the penalty.

Photo: © Denis Bushkovsky / Match TV

Then there was the bloodied face of Pavel Karnaukhov from the stick of Yegor Yakovlev. The score was already 4:0, but the captain of Magnitogorsk overdid it. Skirmishes there, by the way, were also enough. And how nervous the army team was when they could not win back from 0:1, giving Vasily Koshechkin two crackers in a row!

The sixth match was the apogee of nervous tension. The speed increased, the number of errors and deletions on both sides jumped up sharply. It ended up being a shoulder strike to the head of Claes Dahlbeck by Josh Curry. 5+20. The army team did not use a large fine, but they pretty much exhausted the Magnitogorsk team. They had practically no strength left to play even one puck.

But to clarify the relationship – very much so. A second before the final siren, Nikita Nesterov and Pavel Karnaukhov clashed in a doubles match against Denis Zernov and Philippe Maillet. Push the opponent in the back performed by Zernov, then – according to hockey classics. They say they don’t wave their fists after a fight. But this is clearly not the case.

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Surely during the time spent in mutual embrace, they said a lot of pleasant things. No provocateur like Leo Komarov is needed here to start a fire – they are so fed up with each other.

Nothing, only one match left. And surely the players of both teams have reserved special words for him.