After last night's defeat vs. Barcelona, Slavia Sofia cannot advance to the next round of the Continental Cup. Slavia played a game against similarly eliminated Herzliya of Israel to close out the tournament for both teams. In essence, Slavia, like Herzliya's other opponents, treated the game as a simple training session, given that Herzliya iced, for the most part, a junior squad. The game allowed Slavia to rest its stars Morgunov and Muchakov for the most part, and opened space for other players show their skills. For the Israelis, it was another rough loss but experience gained against senior opponents tougher than the senior opponents that they will eventually face when they graduate to the men's Israeli League.
Herzliya, of course, relied on its senior (i.e., men's) players and on a decent goalie (Stanislav Nikolaev) throughout the event.
The first period had a surprise at 08:50 when Artiom Korotin, Herzliya's player-coach & captain, with a nice solo effort, tied the game 1-1 less than three minutes after Slavia's Jeffrey Haglund had scored the opening goal. Korotin, incidentally, is the only Herzliya player (even on its fill roster) with any Israeli national team experience. However, Slavia Sofia quickly frustrated Herzliya's hopes with another three goals before end of first period, including two in just over a minute.
In the second period the trend seemed the same: Slavia scored two goals in the first 5 minutes, but then the Bulgarians seemed to relax a bit, and Herzliya finally played some good hockey: Artiom Korotin had a couple of chances and hit the post, and Dima Rozenman, one of the few senior players competing for Herzliya, had a strong chance saved by Slavia's goaltender Parashkov.
Slavia made the score 7-1 (goal by Stoev) at 34:41, which marked the end of Herzliya's good momentum. The second period ended with Slavia leading by the 7-1 score.
If the game ever seemed competitive, that ended in the third period. Herzliya did open the scoring in the final frame with an Idan Treibochan goal at 41:14, but Slavia answered with two goals in the next two minutes to push the rout to 9-2. Herzliya's Artiom Korotin then hit a post for the second time in the game, Slavia scored another two goals (both by Tsvetan Tsvetanov), and the final score was 11-2 for Slavia.
Internationalhockey MVP's: Slavia: Martin Boyadjiev Herzliya: Artiom Korotin
Slavia Sofia - Herzliya 11-2 (4-1,3-0,4-1)
05:59 1-0 Jeffrey Haglund (I. Mihailov,Indzhevatov)
08:50 1-1 Artiom Korotkin (S.Ratner)
10:50 2-1 Svetlin Stoev (B. Stefanov, Hadzitonev)
12:03 3-1 Georgi Mladenov (Asenov,Slavchev)
16:28 4-1 Rosen Asenov (Mladenov,Boyadjiev)
23:20 5-1 Georgi Mladenov (Boyadjiev)
25:41 6-1 Stanislav Muchakov (Hadzitonev,Morgunov)
34:41 7-1 Svetlin Stoev (Muchakov) PP
41:14 7-2 Idan Treibochan (Nosankov,Silutin)
43:40 8-2 Jeffrey Haglund (I.Mihaylov,Radovanov)
44:32 9-2 Peter Hadzhitonev (Muchakov, Slavchev)
53:25 10-2 Tsvetan Tsvetanov (Asenov,Boyadjiev)
54:07 11-2 Tsvetan Tsvetanov (Boyadjiev)
PIM: 3x2 - 2x2
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