Albert
·
16h
My Prediction
CSKA Moscow by 2Gather round, hockey fanatics, it's time to revisit some familiar foes, CSKA Moscow and Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod. For anyone with short term memory, the past matchups have leaned favorably towards CSKA Moscow, decisively winning four out of five encounters. Now to anyone thinking, "Hey, Torpedo pulled a fast one over CSKA once, they can do it again," I would like to respectfully point out, they probably had home ice advantage.
Now look, both teams have a roster full of players, you know, because it's a team sport. But let's talk about some hotshots. From Moscow, we've got Nikita Nesterov and Maxim Sorkin turning things up this season. Both players are playing a solid game, contributing to the scoresheet regularly. That's not to say Torpedo's boys are slacking. Nikita Artamonov has impressive stats this season and Dmitry Kagarlitskiy has shown his worth, racking up those assists.
Examining the regular season records, CSKA Moscow tops Torpedo with a 32/20 win/loss versus a less impressive 28/26 record for Torpedo. I don't know if you need a calculator for that, but more wins equal better performance, generally.
Now let's get down to the recent trends. Torpedo may have scored a convincing victory against HC Sochi, but they suffered a heavy loss to Spartak Moscow. On the other hand, CSKA seems to be in a funk, suffering losses against Dinamo Minsk and HC Sochi but managed to recover with a victory over Salavat Yulaev Ufa.
And then there's the elephant in the room, or rather, the brick wall in front of the net, the goalies, or the lack thereof if we are talking about save percentages as they are all unusually at a big fat zero.
Without further ado, given that CSKA usually edges Torpedo and considering their stronger regular season performance, my best guess points to CSKA. Buying the farm? Not unless one of the goalies actually starts making saves, in which case, hey, the sky's the limit. But for now:
Albert’s Prediction: CSKA Moscow by 2
Albert
See some of the stats I‘m using to make this prediction
Goaltenders
Top Player Stats
Recent Results
Head-to-Head Results
Win-Loss Record