Baikal Beats Zorky, Playoffs Enter Final Stretch

Rekord Stadium, IRKUTSK, Russia -- In a season that has been marked by inconsistency, Baikal-Energia fans have something to cheer about on this International Womens Day as the home side defeated Zorky Krasnogorsk 6-3 in front of a capacity crowd at Rekord Stadium.

Four Baikal players had multi-point games, led by Alexander Nasonov's two goals and two assists. Roman Murzin also scored two goals, while Nikolai Kadakin registered a goal and an assist. Those two tallies give Nasonov 40 goals on the year, good for fifth place in the league.

The decision to move the game from Irkutsk's much larger Trud Stadium was made the night before the game. Warmer weather had severely affected the quality of the ice, team officials said, forcing the move to the artificially-cooled surface at Rekord. The change of venue left literally thousands out in the cold, as Rekord has a capacity of only 6,300, while Trud holds more than 18,000.

The win puts Baikal in eighth place in the standings. There are only four games left to play for each team, and at 7-11, the best Irkutsk can hope for is a .500 finish. Dynamo Moscow sits atop the 12-team table at 15-1.

The playoff format is rather bizarre, and honestly, it just took me about 15 minutes to figure it out even though I have grasped it before, and even written about it. Each team has currently played seven or eight games of their 12-game schedule, which consists of home-and-home matchups with the six playoff teams from the opposite division. Also included in the overall standings are the results of regular season matches between eventual playoff teams (thus Baikal's regular season losses to SKA-Neftyanik are included in the current standings, but its win over SKA-Sverdlovsk is not).

Here is how Baikal has fared thus far:

Rodina Kirov 7:3 Baikal-Energia
Zorky Krasnogorsk 14:6 Baikal-Energia
Baikal-Energia 7:3 Raketa Kazan
Baikal-Energia 6:5 Uralsky Trubnik Pervouralsk
Volga Ulyanovsk 7:6 Baikal-Energia
Dynamo Moscow 19:5 Baikal-Energia
Baikal-Energia 4:6 Rodina Kirov
Baikal-Energia 6:3 Zorky Krasnogorsk

And the remaining schedule:

March 12: @ Raketa Kazan
March 15: @ Uralsky Trubnik Pervouralsk
March 19: vs. Volga Ulyanovsk
March 22: vs. Dynamo Moscow

Baikal is certainly capable of beating the next three teams, but a win in the season finale at home against Dynamo is a lot to ask of this squad. After a season of crushing defections and lowered expectations, a victory in that game would certainly bode well for this young team heading into next season.