Five close games in KHL

16 Jan 2012 | Roman Solovyev

Monday's five KHL games were all close. Two were decided in the shootout and three ended with a one-goal won.

Vityaz 2-3 Metallurg Nk
Vityaz lost the 7th straight game after losing to Metallurg Nk 2-3 at home. The away team got a comfortable lead at the middle of the first with Alexei Medvedev's goal at 00:48, Alexei Kosourov and Randy Robitaille's goals. Jon Mirasty who played only his first game in the new year cut the Metallurg lead early in the second. It was the second goal by Mirasty this season. Vityaz scored once more but it wasn't enough to catch Metallurg. Yevgeny Timkin in the third period closed the game with a 2-3 score.

Severstal 3-2 Amur
In another game of the day one of the teams got a 3-goal lead in the first period. Severstal did it in the home game against Amur. At 06:11 Ignat Zemchenko who played at WJC in Calgary opened the scoring with his first goal of the season. Ruslan Nurtdinov and Vadim Shipachyov with his 17th goal of the season increased the lead to 3 goals. Petr Vrana and Andrei Stepanov cut the Severstal lead but Amur couldn't do more. Amur lost the second game in this road trip and now will go to Chekhov to face with outsider of the West Vityaz.

Spartak 2-3 Sibir
After yesterday's trade of one of the key players Ivan Kasutin to Ak Bars it became obvious that Spartak won't believe that they will go into playoffs. After two goalless periods it was only 7 seconds in the third when Mikhail Yunkov gave Spartak a 1-goal lead. Maxim Krivonozhkin tied the game in power-play at 45:54. 6 minutes later Yegor Mikhailov led Spartak ahead again but Sibir tied the game with Vyacheslav Solodukhin's first goal and won the game with 45 seconds remaining when Jonas Enlund beat Spartak goalie Sergei Borisov.

Kasutin - no more in Spartak

Torpedo 3-4SO Metallurg Mg
In Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo lost the second time in this home series. Metallurg Mg was ahead after the first period with Sergei Mozyakin and Alexei Kaigorodov goals when Torpedo only answered with Vladimir Galuzin's accurate shot. Alexei Bondarev early in the second increased the lead to 2 goals. But in 10 minutes they tied the game with Robert Nilsson and Ilya Krikunov goals. The game winner was defined in the shootout where Martin Thörnberg scored for Torpedo while Sergey Mozyakin and Dmitry Kazionov scored for Metallurg Mg.

Dynamo Msk 1-2SO Avangard
In another game in Moscow Avangard beat Dynamo in a shootout series. Marek Kvapil gave the home team the lead at 00:43. Nikita Pivtsakin with his first goal of the season tied the game at 38:11. In the shootout a lonely goal by Alexander Perezhogin led Avangard to the win. Karri Rämö stopped 24 shots during regulations and overtime and denied three penalty shots attempts in the shootout.