Russia vs Czech Republic: The Red Machine to win the third game at home

The Russian national team will not lose to the Czech Republic in four straight head-to-head encounters at the Channel One Cup. Will Filip Pesan’s team be able to break their losing streak? We predict that the Red Machine will be stronger again!

The Russian national team continues to prepare for the Olympics in Beijing in their first tournament with new coaching staff. During the Karjala Cup, the Russian national team only managed to win one game with two losses. Still, with a more optimal roster and Alexei Zhamnov as a coach, their results improved significantly. In the first game, the Red Machine beat Canada 4:3 in a hard-fought game, and then in an equally hard battle, they managed to defeat the Swedish national team 1:0. Two victories in a row allowed the Russian team to lead in the Euro Hockey Tour home leg standings.

The Czech national team failed to start the Euro Hockey Tour, suffering three straight defeats with a combined score of 5:13. The coaching staff fielded a highly experimental squad for the Karjala Cup, but Filip Pesan called on virtually all the strongest players for the Russian tournament. He took Michael Frolik and David Krejci, who spent their entire careers in the NHL, and returned to the local league during the offseason. The Czechs played their first game in the Channel One Cup at the O2 Arena in Prague against the Finns, they lost for a long time, managed to level the score with 11 seconds to go in the third period, but in the end, lost in a shoot-off 2-3.

The Russian national team has been performing at the home stage of the Euro Hockey Tour so far with a hundred percent result, having won in regular time in both starting meetings, with Alexei Zhamnov’s charges having a day off the day before. The Czechs are having a difficult season because they lost all three games in the Karjala Cup, and now they started in the First Channel Cup with a defeat in a rescheduled game against Finland in Prague - 2:3. After that, the Czech side still had to fly to Moscow, which doesn’t add any freshness to their team, and they are even inferior to the home team in terms of skill. As a result, we’d have to bet on a win for the Russian team for 1.75.

The Czech Republic team not only beats Russia very seldom but also concedes a lot. In the last five head-to-head encounters, the Red Machine scored 20 times (4.00 goals per game on average), which is a respectable total. If you only look at the results in the Channel One Cup, the picture is even more compelling since the Russians have scored 20 goals (5.00 goals per game on average) over the past four games. Given this, Individual Total 1 Over 3.5 pucks for 2.25 seems to be the best option for our prediction.

Nikita Gusev is one of the strongest forwards in the KHL, who spent the previous two seasons trying to break into the NHL, but failed, so he returned to SKA, where he continues to impress with his bright and efficient play. In 22 games in the regular season, he’s already scored 23 points (7 goals + 16 assists). Yes, the 29-year-old was ill before the Channel One Cup, so he missed the game with Canada, and he didn’t look his best against Sweden either, which didn’t prevent him from netting the only goal. A day off should do him good, so a bet on Nikita Gusev’s Total Over 0.5-point for 1.71 is worth looking into.