Florida’s Dmitry Kulikov logged 18:57 minutes of ice time and registered three shots on goal with an even +/- rating in the shutout win in Sunday action from the KHL. The game was a tense goaltender duel until Sergei Plotnikov scored off a feed from Blue Jacket center Artem Anisimov at the 6:36 mark of the third period. Egor Averin scored the clinching goal with 91 seconds left to complete the road victory for Lokomotiv. Alexander Chernikov set up the goal. Vitaly Kolesnik made 25 saves in posting the Yaroslavl shutout while Ivan Kasutin took the hard luck loss for Vityaz Chekhov. The win gave Lokomotiv 22 points on the young season and moved them into first place in the Tarasov Division. Former Panthers Niklas Hagman and Viktor Kozlov are also on the Lokomotiv roster.
More on the Plotnikov goal from our own John Beatty, who provides a must-see video link:
The sequence can be seen on this official KHL highlight video, starting at 3:52. A broken play at the net leads to Anisimov passing the puck back to Kulikov at the point. Kulikov shoots it on net and the rebound bounces to Anisimov. Anisimov passes the puck across to Plotnikov who puts it in a wide open net.