Krasnoyarsk vs Khimik

Sokol struck first against the run of play. At 16:31 of the opening period, Innokenty Rybin finished a feed from Denis Baranov to give Krasnoyarsk a 1-0 lead at the first intermission, despite Khimik’s territorial dominance.

Rybin struck again early in the second period (25:03), doubling Sokol’s advantage with another counter-attacking goal — the precise danger Khimik head coach Egor Bashkatov had warned his players about pre-match.

“We knew the opponent is very good on counter-attacks, and that’s how it turned out. We conceded several counter-attacks, two of them were decisive,” Bashkatov said post-match, via the VHL official site.

Khimik pulled one back at 33:54 when Ivan Gavrilov, part of the tournament’s most productive forward line (Solovyov/Gavrilov/Varyushkin), converted a power-play opportunity to make it 2-1 heading into the second intermission.

Egor Varyushkin equalised 4:37 into the third period (44:37), levelling the scores at 2-2. Neither side found a winner in regulation, sending the game to 3-on-3 overtime.

Khimik controlled the extra frame and the decisive moment came at 64:44 (4:44 into OT) when 17-year-old Evgeny Yakunin — a Spartak Moscow academy product on duty with the farm team — buried the game-winner for his first-ever goal at senior VHL level.

“The lads did well, they didn’t give up, kept pushing their line, turned the game around. I’m happy for the young players who scored the winning goal in overtime,” Bashkatov added.

Varyushkin’s equaliser at 44:37 of the third period. Sokol had successfully protected their lead for nearly 20 minutes after Gavrilov’s power-play goal, but Varyushkin’s strike erased the second two-goal deficit and shifted momentum decisively. Sokol never led again.

• Evgeny Yakunin (Khimik) — The 17-year-old Spartak system forward scored the OT winner, his first goal in senior VHL competition. His milestone moment was confirmed by Spartak Moscow’s official site.
• Innokenty Rybin (Sokol) — Scored both of Sokol’s goals (16:31, 25:03), exploiting space on the counter-attack to build a two-goal cushion that proved insufficient.
• Egor Varyushkin (Khimik) — Netted the crucial 2-2 equaliser early in the third period as part of Khimik’s most productive line at the tournament.
• Ivan Gavrilov (Khimik) — Scored the power-play goal that halved the deficit, starting the comeback.
• Player of the Match: Evgeny Yakunin — For the game-winning overtime goal in his first senior VHL appearance.

The period-by-period breakdown (1-0, 1-1, 0-1, 0-1 via the betmana.co.uk match page) reveals a clear narrative: Sokol dominated the opening 25 minutes, outscoring Khimik 2-0, but managed only one shot on target in the final 20 minutes of regulation plus overtime. Khimik’s discipline paid off — they converted 1 of 2 power plays while Sokol went 0 for 1, per kapper.kz match data. Khimik also held a 4-2 edge in penalty minutes, suggesting more controlled play as the game wore on.

Khimik continued their unbeaten run at the Drozdecki Tournament, having previously defeated Gornyak-UGMK (2-0) and Zvezda Moscow (4-2). They completed a tournament clean sweep the following day by beating SKA-VMF 5-2 on 14 August, finishing first in the four-team round-robin with 8 points (4 games, 4 wins).

Sokol, meanwhile, went 1-3 across the tournament — a 2-1 loss to SKA-VMF (10 Aug), a 5-2 win over Gornyak (12 Aug), this 2-3 OT loss to Khimik, and a 1-4 defeat to Zvezda (14 Aug) — finishing fourth. Sokol’s next scheduled action was a home pre-season tournament at Platinum Arena (25-27 August) against Dynamo-Altai and HC Norilsk, ahead of their VHL regular-season opener at Norilsk on 3 September 2026.

A textbook pre-season collapse: Sokol built a two-goal lead through sharp counter-attacking but could not sustain their intensity, while Khimik’s patience, special teams and depth prevailed. For Yakunin, the first of what Spartak Moscow hope will be many goals at senior level.