CSKA turned on the turbo and gave a perfect match. No one plays at such intensity in the KHL – not even Lokomotiv I'll start from the end: it's hard to find a team in the KHL that has spent this season

CSKA turned on the turbo and gave a perfect match. No one plays at such intensity in the KHL – not even Lokomotiv

I'll start from the end: it's hard to find a team in the KHL that has played this season better than Lokomotiv (well, except for CSKA). Competent restructuring with a new coach: defensive schemes quickly mastered by the players and a tight team like Mike Tyson's fist. Yaroslavl promised that it would be as difficult as possible for CSKA when they met in the playoffs – everything was so.

It was six close matches. In the seventh Lokomotiv was a bit lacking – but in this case, this is not a diagnosis, but a reason to work on yourself and become stronger. And come back next year with new ambitions.

Yaroslavl's majority was messing up this entire series – it failed in the seventh game as well. The team lacked diversity in attack – they really lacked it today. For the last week and a half, Lokomotiv compensated a lot with pure energy, desire, motivation – and it seemed that if they held the Match of Life today, then everything would be okay. But it is impossible to have three Life Matches in one series.

In general, what happened was what was supposed to happen: one brilliant team finished the season. The problems of Lokomotiv became problems only against the backdrop of CSKA – so these are not such problems. This is a resource for reinforcement. The West has long needed someone new in the Gagarin Cup final: before SKA / CSKA, it was already Lev in 2014.

But there is good news: another brilliant team continues the season. Before the game, I thought like this: at some point, Nikitin will have to humanize his team's game a little, add unpredictability and creativity to make the necessary difference.

No: CSKA today has become even more mechanical. The team turned on even more power. Her coach's method is to break the game into micro-segments and play each with maximum intensity, maximum right – today he has reached perfection (perhaps intermediate – we will find out from the series with SKA). CSKA played quickly, powerfully and effectively.

Not so long ago, I compared SKA hockey with constructivist architecture – and so the game of CSKA today resembled the flight of a jet plane. On the one hand, it would seem that flight is some kind of spiritual, almost creative phenomenon, but it was ensured by the harsh, honest and repeatedly thought-out work of mechanics.

This CSKA is so thought out that even when “Sanya Popov” (as Nikitin called him after the match) came to the defender’s position, nothing changed in the game. Not a single failure.

Each player has all the necessary instructions in his head.

I like to note this efficiency in Shalunov's link – in how lightning fast it brings the puck to the shot and, most often, to the goal. Maybe this is too bold an association, but I think that if Viktor Tikhonov Sr. saw this team, he would be very pleased.

Now it’s not very clear to me who will be able to cope with this at all – and where else can you see such monstrously high-quality hockey (there are no analogues even in the NHL). Thank God it's not my headache.

The next opponent of the army team of Moscow is SKA. MiG-9 against Dom Melnikov. Interesting.