Nomad repeated its semi-final group stage victory over Cardiff thanks to a fast start and two goals from Abay Mangisbayev. The host team battled hard and forced visiting goalie Nikita Boyarkin into 33 saves, but never recovered from allowing two goals in the first two minutes.
"It was very similar to when we played them in the last round," reflected Cardiff defender Mark Richardson. "I don't want to take anything away from them but we had a lot of the puck, a lot of pressure. and ultimately we just couldn't break through."
In the previous round, Nomad scored five goals on 29 shots to take a 5-4 verdict, while Boyarkin made 41 saves. Today the Kazakhs had five from 25 shots and Boyarkin was impressive once more.
"He's a very good goaltender," concluded Richardson. "I think he's the backbone of their team and it was tough to get something past him."
It wasn’t the start the Devils were hoping for. Nomad scored on its first two attacks, jumping to a 2-0 lead on 2:10. Stanislav Alexandrov opened the scoring and before the crowd had settled down again, Abay Mangibayev doubled the lead after Danil Butenko sent the puck around the boards and Dmitriy Makayev got it to the doorstep for the young Kazakh prospect.
Rocked by that start, Cardiff looked for a way back. James Arniel halved the deficit with a well-executed individual effort, collecting the puck in centre ice and winning his duel with Nikita Boyarkin in the Astana net. Later there were good chances for Cole Sanford and Marcus Crawford to tie the game. However, at the first break, a 15-6 shot count for Cardiff could not cancel out Nomad’s 2-1 lead.
At the start of the third period, Nomad got a third goal. Just 55 seconds into the session, Nikolay Shulga got on the end of Artur Gatiyatov’s feed at the back door. Cardiff’s problems intensified when goalscorer Arniel was ejected from the game for a check to the head, but the home PK nullified Nomad’s pressure to stay in the game. And there was a lifeline in the 35th minute when a speculative point shot from Bode Wilde looped through traffic and deceived the impressive Boyarkin.
But Nomad would not be denied. Mangisbayev got his second of the night in the third period, benefitting from a big deflection off Cardiff defender Josh Batch to make it 4-2 before a Mikhail Rakhmanov empty-net tally completed the win.