Sochi vs Amur Khabarovsk Prediction 9 January 2025

🔊 Which of the underdogs in their conferences will manage to improve their tournament standing? This coming Thursday, the Sochi ice will be the battleground for the local team and Amur Khabarovsk. Both clubs have rarely pleased their fans this season. Therefore, the upcoming match is a great opportunity for each team to taste victory. Bookmakers give a slight preference to the home team: the success of the "Leopards" is 2.2, the victory of the "Tigers" is 3. Our editorial team tried to predict the most likely scenario of the match.

📊 H2H

This season, the teams had to face each other at the "Platinum Arena". In the December meeting, the "Tigers" were stronger than the "Leopards" (2:1). Interestingly, for the past two seasons, Sochi has not been able to defeat Amur on their home ice (1:2, 1:3).

🟡 SOCHI

The Sochi hockey players entered the new year with old problems. Just recently, the "Leopards" lost twice to Moscow Dynamo (1:5, 0:2) on home ice. Currently, Sergey Zubov's team looks completely hopeless - only 1 win in the last 13 matches. The team's position at the bottom of the Western Conference standings only indicates major issues. The leader of Sochi in this regular season is Artur Tyanulin, who managed to score 32 points in 37 games. Amir Garaev, 23, continues to recover from an injury.

🐯 AMUR

The "Tigers" unexpectedly failed to oppose Kunlun (0:5) in a recent match. The Khabarovsk club performed poorly in many aspects of the game, resulting in as many as 52 shots towards Matthew Jurusik's goal. Meanwhile, Viktor Kostyuchenko's team troubled Jeremy Smith more than twice as less - 25 shots. Currently, the Far Eastern team is at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings with only 23 points. It should also be noted that Amur is the most conceding team in the KHL - about 3.46 goals per game. The top scorer for the "Tigers" remains Alex Galchenyuk (16+11).

🔗 PROBABLE LINEUPS

Sochi: Volokhin - Ibragimov, Volkov - Khokhlachev, Yaremchuk, Bitten

Amur: Jurusik - Shchemerov, Lee - Barulin, Galchenyuk, Lee

🥅 GOALIES

Evgeny Volokhin looked very respectable in recent matches against Moscow Dynamo. In each match, the 19-year-old goalie saved no less than 95.70% of shots. However, even such reliable hockey from the young goalie did not allow the "Leopards" to add any points to their tally.

Matthew Jurusik was under real siege in the recent match against Kunlun (0:5). Despite conceding 5 pucks, the American goalie managed to make 47 saves. The past match was his 5th in an Amur jersey. We note Jurusik's average statistics (90.20% save percentage, GAA - 3.58).

📝 MATCH PREDICTION

Both teams concede excessively. Also, both Sochi and Amur lack balance and chemistry in their lines. This directly leads to a large number of turnovers and an inability to prevent sharp attacks from opponents. Our editorial team anticipates a goal-scoring extravaganza in this match between league underdogs. The key choice is total over 4.5 pucks scored.