SKA Saint Petersburg - Torpedo N. Novgorod predictions and free betting tips [03/03/2024]

Continental Hockey League playoffs. Gagarin Cup 2024. First round. Western conference. The series score 0:1. The third match of the sporting day on the finisher of the fourth game day. Will the main sensation of the early playoff days continue, or will the favourite claim it? The battle of the second and seventh place in the conference. SKA Saint Petersburg will host "Torpedo" from Nizhny Novgorod.

SKA Saint Petersburg

Few took notice of SKA's disastrous match against Chinese Kunlun. Well, the end of the season, anything can happen, it seems the players of the St. Petersburg club just burnt out, such a match can always happen and it is not worth focusing on it, even if they lost the Conference Cup in it. However, the first playoff match happened, "Torpedo", which had been dismantled, arrived by train as a guest to SKA, at the end of this regular season, everyone who was not lazy criticised. It seemed to everyone that SKA would now just tear their opponent apart.

However, the biggest upset among the first series matches happened, because if other results could still be predicted somehow, it was very difficult to predict this defeat of SKA in this series when they conceded five pucks, let two of them be into an empty net. Let's see, of course, what will be in the second match, SKA will surely be stuffed to the tomatoes and the start of the match will certainly be extremely active for SKA.

"Torpedo" Nizhny Novgorod

Igor Larionov has to be thanked, no one has done such a match preview as the team from Nizhny Novgorod. They literally sabotaged the end of the championship, breaking the faith in "Torpedo", and travelled by train to Saint Petersburg. It seemed like that was it, the seventh place team couldn't be counted on. But "Torpedo" exploded into their match with SKA, bulldozing the competitors with their speed in the first few minutes. St Petersburg's club players just could not do anything against the youth of Nizhny Novgorod.

The result was 2:0 in the first period, and then Igor Larionov's team tried to hold the score, and when the gap narrowed to one puck - the score was 2:1, they threw in the third puck, and then finished off their opponent with two pucks into an empty net. And as a result, the main sensation of the second game day and probably all the first matches of the KHL playoffs.

Head to Head

SKA Saint Petersburg and "Torpedo" Nizhny Novgorod have played 48 matches between themselves. Out of these, SKA has 33 victories, while "Torpedo" has won 15 matches. This regular season both teams have two victories each, the St. Petersburg club won 4:3 in the main and 4:3 in overtime. Nizhny Novgorod team won - 4:3 and 3:1. In the playoff, the team from Nizhny Novgorod won with a score of 5:2.

Forecast

Here, of course, I would bet on the victory of the army men, maybe even with a handicap, because after a failure, they need to rehabilitate.

Total forecast

However, after the first match, I want to take TO (5.5) for 2.22, well, I have a little faith that "Torpedo" can score quite a few pucks in SKA's goal.