CSKA Moscow held off SKA St. Petersburg 6-5 in regulation, riding a three-goal middle period and a hat trick from Pavel Karnaukhov. The home side never trailed after the 11th minute, and that cushion was exactly what it needed once SKA pushed late.
SKA struck first through Vasily Atanasov at 6, but Karnaukhov (11) and Nikolai Kovalenko (14) flipped it to 2-1 by intermission. The second period was a trade-off — Atanasov again at 22, Kovalenko back at 23, Rocco Grimaldi at 26 — before Karnaukhov scored at 38 and 40 for a 5-3 lead, and Dmitri Buchelnikov's goal at 45 made it 6-3. Nikita Dishkovsky at 46 and Vladislav Romanov at 50 got SKA within one, and the margin held.
Karnaukhov's three goals, two of them assisted by Klim Kostin, carried the scoring; Kovalenko added two, both set up by Denis Gurianov. For SKA, Atanasov's pair and Romanov's goal-and-assist were not enough against a six-goal night.