SKA Saint Petersburg roared back from an early deficit to win Game 5 of the Gagarin Cup finals 5-3 over Metallurg Magnitogorsk, capturing their second Cup in three seasons, with goals from five different scorers and a 42 save performance by Mikko Koskinen locking up the title.

Despite an early onslaught from Metallurg, with goals by Oskar Osala and Viktor Antipin giving them a 2-0 lead early in the second period, a trio of goals by Nikita Gusev, Alexander Barabanov, Yevgeni Dadonov put SKA ahead at the end of the third period, and Ilya Kovalchuk and Sergei Plotnikov tallies sealed the victory. And Koskinen, facing 20 shots in the third period (while his team put up only three), held his ground to ensure the Cup was theirs.

Three of the four nations represented on SKA have also held the International Hockey Lineal Championship, including the aforementioned Koskinen, Dadonov, Kovalchuk and Plotnikov, as well as other star players like Viktor Tikhonov and Pavel Datsyuk, making history as a joint Stanley and Gagarin Cup winner. The victory also means that Russia will now have many of their stars from both SKA and Metallurg available for the national team, who just happened to have won the IHLC back from France just 24 hours ago, and will now face Switzerland in the third round of the Euro Hockey Challenge.

Our congratulations go out to the players, management and fans of SKA Saint Petersburg, with those on the roster that have also held the IHLC highlighted in bold:

Photo Credit: KHL – IIHF – HHOF – IOC