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Lev undefeated at home

Lev has three wins in a row at home, while Kazan's displays were not that good on the tour, and fatigue could also be a factor in their play

Lev has opened the season admirably with five wins in seven games, and they have also notched up three consecutive home wins against strong opponents. After they defeated Torpedo in overtime, they were also victorious against the defending champion Dynamo Moscow in a superb match.

They had 11 shots more that the mighty away team and even had 9 powerplays out of which they scored none which is very bad and if we take into account that they used only 11 percent of their powerplays during the season then we can conclude that this area of the game is not their strong point. But they scored two goals from open play and defended admirably which was enough to seal the victory and take the big three points. Their goalkeeper Vehanen stopped 21 out of 22 shots which is 95 percent which has certainly helped the home team. In the third period they played good defence, withstood all the pressure and took all three points.

They didn't concede in the six powerplays the away team had, which is a big success against such a powerful team, but at the same time not a big surprise because of their great defensive displays and the fact that they concede only two goals on average.

- I believe that we can repeat our good display in the upcoming game against Kazan. We will again play responsibly in defence but also go for the win because it's there for the taking - said Lev's forward Luke Cingel.
Maenpaa is the only player unavailable for Lev and they generaly don't have a lot of injury problems. They are in great form, especially at home in the last three rounds, and can definitely win this game. They have already defeated them in a friendly match before the season started.

The away team from Kazan are at the moment on their "European tour" and haven't show great hockey. They only managed to defeat Dinamo Riga, but after that they lost without scoring a goal against CSKA and on Saturday they scored just one against Slovan. Now they are to play against Lev, which is Kazan's fifth game in ten days and fatigue could be a factor.

Maybe that's the reason why they are not very impressive in attack in their away matches. They only score 1.25 goals on average. That means that they played four away matches and managed to score only five goals.

In the last round they were losing to Slovan until the third period, when they evened the score, but lost the additional point in overtime. Kazan only had 23 shots on goal, but the Slovaks were no better having only 22. Their defence looks very solid. One upside for the guests is that they gave a great goaltending duo Barulin-Garipov, so it doesn't even matter who's in goal.

The downside is that their attack is not on the expected level due to Zaripov and Morozov leaving in the summer, and it will take some time before they sort out their attacking lines. They also have discipline problems. Kazan has so far earned 45 penalties, the most in the league.
The excellent forward and co-captain Alexei Tereschenko played his first match of this year because he has finally recovered from an injury.

Kazan is the best defensive team in the East, which plays away games very cautiously, as evidenced by all four of their away games this season, which ended below this margin. The attack had lost Morozov and Zaripov and now this segment does not look convincing. In the last two away games it has reached only one goal, and Lev are not any weaker than Slovan, which in the final match scored only one goal. Moreover, Lev are stronger defensively, and they showed that against Vityaz and against the mighty Dinamo in the last round. However, they showed that their attack was not effective against teams with stronger defense, such as Dinamo, and I'm quite sure they will have problems with Kazan, who have a defense similar to Dinamo's and have two great goalies. This will be an open game, it will be very hard to score over four goals in the regular time and it certainly worth to playing it.