Novokuznetsk still seems to have lost the fight against Ugra for the first place in the championship, as the backlog is already quite solid. But despite this, Novokuznetsk naturally remains a big force in the VHL and one of the main contenders for the title. Naturally, Metallurg is the favorite for the upcoming meeting and here the question can be asked not about who will be the winner of this meeting, but about how the hosts will win here. Metallurg is currently leading by quite a large margin in terms of performance, and so far Novokuznetsk is the only team to have already passed the 150-goal mark. Well, Buran owns one of the most leaky defenses this season. Here, you can actually draw some conclusions as to how confident the hosts are able to win here.

Buran and Yermak have been stuck at the bottom of the tournament for a long time and only occasionally manage to hold their own against their rivals, and these rivals are naturally not in the top three. Yes, Voronezh often sticks to matches, and the team can be commended for often losing with scores of -1:5 and greater. But only 7 wins in 43 matches obviously indicates that something is wrong with the quality of Buran’s play, and it is difficult to count on their positive results in clashes with top rivals, as well as on their home pages. Here the picture actually emerges that for Buran everything here should end in failure, and quite palpable at that.