CSKA vs SKA. How will the fundamental rivalry between the two army teams end?

The first game week after the break in the championship will end with the cult “army derby” in which hockey players CSKA and SKA will come together. The second meeting of these rivals in the current championship will take place in Moscow, on the ice of the CSKA Arena. 

• Expert Predictions Analysis
• CSKA vs SKA facts
• ODDs
• Game Totals Prediction

Our Expert Predictions & Analysis on CSKA vs SKAl

CSKA

The capital CSKA are gradually gaining their usual pace, overcoming the problems that have arisen already in the course of the championship. The change in the game concept was not painless for CSKA. Attacking hockey, for which Sergei Fedorov was invited to take the place of the head coach, is still at the level of dreams. The army team played their best games this season following Igor Nikitin's patterns, when strict game discipline came to the fore, with a clear emphasis on defensive actions. To some extent, the individual skill of individual players helps out, after all, by the standards of the KHL, the level of army hockey players is quite high.

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Before the break in the championship, CSKA had a striking segment, having managed to win five victories in the last six matches. It would seem that a pause in the championship would only add energy to the army team, but the next two matches performed by the capital team again turned out to be rather inexpressive. Sergei Fedorov's wards at home twice finished the main time of the match with a 2-2 draw, but if in the match against Severstal the shootout was successful for the army team, then the army team lost to the fellow countrymen from Dynamo in the same shootout. Thus, now CSKA has settled in the fourth position of the Western Conference, with 38 points scored behind the leading Jokerit 4 points.

SKA

The St. Petersburg club is not much ahead of CSKA, having fallen into a functional hole in recent matches. After a significant increase, when Robinson, Gusev, Lehtonen, Volkov and Zykov joined the SKA squad during the championship, the St. Petersburg club, it would seem, will not meet much resistance and will confidently take first place in the West. At first, everything went like that - Valery Bragin's wards put victories on the stream, at some point, as expected, having displaced Jokerit from the first position.

Problems appeared before the pause in the championship, when SKA lost three matches in a row, and the army team lost twice on home ice (Metallurg 2-3 and Spartak 1-2). The pause in the championship also did not benefit the St. Petersburg hockey players. Another home match against the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, and another defeat, this time with a score of 1-3. SKA has not lost four times in a row this season, so in the next matches we should expect noticeable changes in the composition, since Valery Bragin has the opportunity for this. An unpleasant surprise is Lehtonen's injury, which he received while playing for his national team. Now the Finnish defender will have to miss more than a month and will not play in the current calendar year.

Statistics

The teams met two weeks ago, before the break in the championship. The St. Petersburg team was considered the favorite of that match, but CSKA played the best match in the current championship, confidently beating SKA with a score of 4-0. The hero of the meeting was the forward of CSKA Vladislav Kamenev, who started this season in SKA. The forward has two goals. After this match, the overall statistics of personal meetings of the two army teams reached 88 games, of which CSKA won 42 and SKA 46.

ODDs from download 1xbet

This time, the bookmaker does not give preference to any of the rivals, setting almost equal odds on the outcome of the match: victory for CSKA - 2.55, victory for SKA - 2.47. The tied variation can be taken for 3.95. A similar situation with the expected performance, the quotes for the border total of 4.5 are offered as follows: Total Over (4.5) - 1.88, Total Under (4.5) - 1.89. Install the 1xbet app and place a bet on the favorite!

Game Totals Prediction

Both teams are in the process of restructuring, but if for CSKA this is due to a change in the game concept, then SKA is trying to fit several more star hockey players into the already super-saturated roster. Each of the teams has enough problems, so there will be no time for beauty, the result will come to the fore. This is evidenced by the meeting of rivals two weeks ago, when both teams played strictly from defense, jointly making only 34 shots on goal. Our forecast is Total Under (4.5) with a coefficient of 1.89.