Muddling through the KHL season

I haven't forgotten about my plan to update the KHL each week, but I've been slow because nobody's broken from the pack to make it terribly interesting.  In the West, Torpedo beat Atlant last night, 3-2 to take the lead with a 6-5-1 record and 19 points.  Canadian Matt Ellison, the league's 4th-leading scorer at 5 goals-6 assist-11 points, had a goal and an assist in the win that jumped them over SKA St. Pete and Dinamos Moscow and Minsk.  SKA had just lost its first game the night before, 2-1 to Moscow, and lost Fyodor Fyodorov to a suspension after he kneed an opponent in the leg and knocked him out of the game.  KHL.ru had the video; the SKA coach just put his head in his hands after the stupid penalty.

Dinamo Riga, last year's playoff darlings, have fallen apart early, losing this week 2-1 in a shootout to SKA, 3-0 to Spartak, and 4-2 to Severstal to drop to a head-shaking 1-6-2, putting them a point behind traditional thugs Vityaz Chekov in last place.

In the East, far east team Amur topped Red Army (yeah, I know they call them CSKA exclusively now, but it is the old Red Army team) 3-2 SO to tie Avangard Omsk for the conference (and league) lead at 6-4-1, 20 points.  Yakub Petruzhalek, the league's top scorer at 4-11-15, scored the first goal of the game, and finished the game with the lone goal of the shootout. Traktor went on a 3-game winning streak to pull into a third place tie with Ak Bars at 19 points, topping Avangard Omsk (who is tied with Amur for first) 2-0, Barys Astana 4-3, and 5-1 over Metallurg Magnitogorsk.  Ol' double M's whupping was one of three losses this week for the considered favorite, also having lost to Neftekhimik 3-1 and Ak Bars 4-1.  Another favorite on the schnide this week is Salavat Yulaev, who dropped 3-2 and 4-2 matches to Novokutensk and Omsk, respectively.  This beside having the league's goal leader with Igor Grigorenko with 7.

My temporary team  of Automobilsk Ekaterinburg are not having a real good season though they did pull out a 4-1 home win against Yugra in which Denis Abdullin, one of the few players on the team with more than one goal this year, got #s 4 and 5 in the match.  Earlier in the week they lost a 3-1 game to Barys, in which goalie Sergei Mylnikov was torched for all three goals on just 11 shots in the second period.  All of which leaves them last in the East at 2-7-0, six points behind Magnitogorsk, Neftekhimik, and Sibir for last in the conference and one point up on Riga overall.

Two more bits of news on the Lokomotiv front:  first, the Penguins and Caps are planning to raise money for the families in their matchup later this year.  All players will wear Loko patches that will be autographed and auctioned off, and players' wives and GFs will be selling remembrance bracelets.  Second, the Loko team that will play in the VHL, the Russian Major League (AKA the KHL's farm league) is set to start Dec. 12th.  They will play 22 games, one against each team and be seeded accordingly into the playoffs.