Neman Grodno had no chance of advancing, but they leave this year’s Champions Hockey League on a high note with a 3-0 win over JYP Jyväskylä to the delight of their home fans. Vitali Trus made 12 saves for the shutout.
The game remained scoreless into the last half of the third period, and the closer the game moved to overtime, the closer JYP came to getting the point they needed to secure top spot in Group C, but Gleb Kimenko finally opened the scoring with just 8:02 remaining, taking a pass from Grzegorz Pasiut and going top corner on Eetu Laurikainen. Then just 23 seconds later, Vyacheslav Lisichkin from down low fed Konstantin Bogdanovski in front, who snapped it home.
With Laurikainen out for a sixth attacker in the last minute, Alexander Zhidkikh scored into the empty net to make it a 3-0 final. With that, JYP have to wait for the outcome of the game between EV Zug and the Vienna Capitals to find out if they finish first or second in the group.
"Neman is a very aggressive, young team with a couple of good players. They deserved to win. The second goal was a surprise for us. A lot of penalties. Not our best game, but we are not finished."Autti Turunen, assistant coach, JYP Jyväskylä