Denied in Dmitrov

15 October 2021 Tornado, Vanke Rays, WHL

Tornado Dmitrov 3 KRS Vanke Rays 0 (1-0, 1-0, 1-0)
The Lady Dragons ran into some inspired goaltending in Dmitrov, where Yulia Volkova produced her
first career shut-out in the Women’s Hockey League to deny our girls.
Volkova, 17, grew up in Stupino, the Moscow Region town that became home to the Rays last
season, and began her WHL career with 7.62 last season. That was something of a baptism of fire,
but she showed enough to earn a move to Tornado and has grown in stature since then. Her
performance in yesterday’s 2-1 victory was impressive, and today she went one better with 23 saves
to blank our offense.
It was one of those days when little worked out for Brian Idalski’s team. After Wednesday’s narrow
loss there were minimal changes to the roster. As planned, Tia Chan took over from Kimberly Newell
in goal while Mengying Zhang returned to the offense to give us four full lines once again. The
defensive line-up was unchanged from 24 hours previously.
Not for the first time, our top line of Leah Lum, Rachel Llanes and Kassy Betinol proved a handful for
the opposition. However, on this occasion that cutting edge was missing. And, as the game went on,
frustration crept in. That led to series of penalties against our girls, stifling hopes of getting back into
the game.
In-form Tornado, meanwhile, had fewer problems taking its chances. Anna Shokhina opened the
scoring midway through the first period, Darya Zubok doubled the lead in the middle frame and a
power play goal from Elizaveta Shkalyova late in the third killed off any hopes of a recovery.
At the other end, the Dragons’ offense kept plugging away but found things tough against a well-
drilled opponent. Too often it proved difficult to get Volkova moving east-west and that made it hard
to generate the kind of clear cut scoring chances needed to break through the home defense.
Today’s result leaves the Vanke Rays in sixth place in the standings, three points behind Biryusa
Krasnoyarsk. Tornado recorded a sixth straight victory and climbs to third. Our next games are
scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday of next week when league leader Dynamo Neva visits
Mytishchi.