UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 6, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation-sponsored Sputnik Hockey Club entered this season’s Supreme Hockey League playoff ahead of schedule after beating Bars 3:1 in Kazan.

According to the corporation’s press service, the February 2 game with the Kazan-based team was the third one Sputnik played away and the sixth one the team had won. All in all, the Nizhniy Tagil team won twenty-nine out of forty-six championship games this season, with nine victories in a row at one time. Sputnik is now No.4 on the league table.

Sputnik’s Evgeniy Gasnikov was the first to score in Kazan. Bars players made it even in the third twenty-minute round of the match, making Sputnik supporters nervous, but goalkeeper Denis Perevozchikov was super-efficient in protecting his gates, whereas the other Nizhniy Tagil players scored two more times and won the game.

Sputnik is to play against Almetyevsk’s Neftyanik on February 4 and to have a home game against Pensa’s Diesel on February 15; the players will then head for Perm for a game with Molot-Prikamye on February 19.