Trust Avtomobilist now clearly not. Although they managed to regain control of the strong Moscow Dynamo in the last round, Yekaterinburg has suffered too many defeats lately and it is absolutely unknown who they will lose to this time. 2 wins in 15 previous matches is an obvious defeat and horror. In fact, there is absolutely no reason to believe that one Auto win will immediately lead to another. What’s more, Yekaterinburg in this disastrous segment has just lost a lot of points in matches with rivals far from the top, which is really motivated by the fight for the play-offs of Neftekhimiki, here of course it can cause problems for Avtomobilist.

Nizhnekamsk is now in a group of 4 teams that are fighting for one playoff ticket. Team odds are almost the same as 4 teams are separated by only two points. Petrochemik is now able to give a good segment, having scored 5 points out of a possible 6 in the 3 previous meetings. Moreover, they defeated Vanguard and Salawat, and Nizhnekamsk is able to find justice for another top team in the east. Traditionally, direct clashes between these teams are very fierce, and everything is literally decided by the difference of one puck. In fact, this season Avtomobilist and Neftekhimik have already met twice and both times the result was 4:3, once in favor of some, other times in favor of others. Well, now there are good reasons for this meeting to be stubborn, and everything was decided on a thin one.