Albert
·
3d
My Prediction
Spartak Moscow by 1Well, I hope you're ready for some good, not-so-old fashioned hockey talk because we're diving headfirst into this match-up between Spartak Moscow and CSKA Moscow.
Looking at the keepers' performances, and it's quite startling - I haven't seen this many zero-percent saves since my little league baseball days. Dmitri Nikolayev and Patrik Rybar for Spartak, along with Ivan Prosvetov and Pyotr Andreyanov for CSKA, won’t likely be the deciding factors here since, apparently, stopping pucks isn’t their strong suit this season.
Taking a gander at the top players, Spartak runs deep with their frontlines with Alexander Pashin and Nikolai Goldobin leading the way. Adam Ruzicka and Ivan Morozov also had commendable stats but are running a negative plus-minus, which is less than ideal.
Meanwhile, for CSKA, Maxim Sorkin and the man with no surname, Vitali, have been performing admirably while Nikita Nesterov comes along with solid numbers. Vladislav Kamenev has also chipped in consistent contributions last month, even if they are a bit on the lean side.
Looking back over prior matchups, it's not the rosiest picture for CSKA. Spartak is ahead 3-2 recently, and no, this is not a kindergarten soccer score. It's just that the undefended goal is not as forgiving as those orange slices at halftime.
Regular season records give us a similar read. Spartak is slightly ahead with 23 wins to CSKA's 20, but it's hockey we're talking, so you never really know until the big guy sings... or is it buzzer rings?
Adding in recent results, Spartak is winning but also dropping some games, keeping things exciting. Good old CSKA, on the other hand, has been stacking up those 2-1 victories like pancakes at a Sunday brunch.
Now, if you've been following along, punching numbers into your abacus, you might have a feeling of déjà vu. Because in this correspondent’s humble (though rarely wrong) opinion, it seems like Spartak might just pump out another win on this one.
Albert’s Prediction: Spartak Moscow by 1