Two games out of Europe today featured Alexei Ponikarovsky playing for HC Donbass Donetsk ,and Evander Kane and Tim Stapleton playing for Dinamo Minsk.
- Donbass would host Severstal Cherepovetsin a game that was very much one sided. It easily could have been 5-0 Donbass after the first frame, but numerous misses by Donbass and saves by Severstal goalie Vasily Koshechkin kept it scoreless after 1 frame. The first goal of the game would come half way through the second when Ponikarovsky came down the right wing, and before getting checked managed to nudge the puck ahead to Ruslan Fedotenko who came in on goal and was denied by Koshechkin, but Tuomas Kiiskinen would net the rebound. Donbass would net 3 more goals before Severtal would end Erik Ersberg’s attempt at a shutout with a little more than 2 minutes left on the clock.
Ponikarovsky would end up with the 1 assist, a +1 rating and 2 shots on goal in 16:00 of ice time. - The representatives from Latvia and Belarus played a very testy affair, in which Evander Kane ended up on the receiving end of a lot of abuse, as the highlights will show him getting dumped repeatedly. He and Raitis Ivanans won’t be exchanging Christmas presents, that’s for sure.
Alexandre Giroux would show off his prowess of scoring that makes him a hot commodity in the AHL, scoring the first goal of the game for Riga.
Kane would finish the night with 2 PIMs, a -1 rating and 1 shot on goal in 14:33 of ice time.
Stapleton would suffer a knee injury in the game, and team staff are expecting to be out of the lineup for 7-10 days. He would end up with a -1 rating in 4:38 of ice time. He will miss Dinamo’s Thursday game against Donbass, and likely next Wednesday’s game against Vityaz.
