It’s funny, but my colleague Maxime Truman published a text this afternoon on Ivan Demidov.
We read there (in connection with Réjean Tremblay’s most recent column on the PunchingGrace.com site) that a KHL player finds that the CH prospect is “extraordinary” on the ice and we can also read that in In the eyes of Bob Hartley, Demidov is “quite a hockey player.”
And there, Demidov is being talked about for the right reasons right now… Because he scored a simply magnificent goal in the KHL.
It happened in the second period, after a quieter first period for the Canadian’s hope.
He only played 3 minutes and 55 seconds during the first engagement, which is not great.
But Demidov really put on a show in the second period: the forward stole the puck from the opponent before beating the goalie, but he never shot.
He instead decided to send the puck to the net with his backhand while there were four players from the other team watching him… And Demidov beat the goalie because the puck ended up in the top of the net .
A real gem:
Remember that Ivan Demidov had the opportunity to play on SKA’s 1st trio for a few games, but he is back on the club’s 3rd unit.
That said, it is by scoring goals like this that he will continue to make Roman Rotenberg look bad, who has not used him to his full potential regularly since the start of the season.
Today, Demidov’s playing time looked like this:
-- 3:55 in first period (five shifts)
- 6:18 in second period (eight appearances)
- 6:51 in third period (nine appearances)
- 51 seconds in overtime (one presence)
In the end, the Canadian’s hope played almost 18 minutes (17:54) and that’s a good thing.
We obviously notice that use was much more frequent from the second period onwards… But Rotenberg above all decided to trust him even more after seeing him score his goal.
Holy Rotenberg…
Let us note in closing that SKA lost the match by a score of 4-3.
Extra time was necessary to determine a winner between the two clubs, and ultimately it was Alexander Radulov’s team who won.
The former Canadian player stood out in the match by scoring two goals.
Prolongation
Note that with the point collected in the ranking, SKA Saint Petersburg is now in 7th place in its division.
He is only four points behind CSKA and 2nd place in the West.
If the trend continues, the club will be able to qualify for the playoffs without much trouble.
