Last minute win for SKA in Riga

16 Jan 2013 | Dennis Mende

Four games were played in the KHL on Wednesday. While Avangard and SKA had more problems than expected, Dynamo won the Moscow derby against Spartak.

Eastern Conference leaders Avangard Omsk started the matchday by defeating CSKA Moscow. Avangard defender Anssi Salmela received a two-minute penalty for slashing already after 41 seconds but a minute later Alexander Frolov brought the hosts in front after a break away when he put a rebound over the goal line. At 11:05 Dmitry Syomin even doubled the lead from a central position. With one of the till then very few chances CSKA scored at 27:10 through Igor Radulov in power play. Avangard goalie Rämö touched the puck but not hard enough to avoid the goal. Within five minutes the home side still went away with a 4-1 lead after goals by Alexander Perezhogin and Anton Belov (power play). This also was the reason for taking Rastislav Stana out of the CSKA net and to replace him with Ilya Proskuryakov. With another power play goal Yakov Rylov brought hope back for the capitals with 15 seconds left in the period. In the last 20 minutes CSKA showed a far better image but they were only able to score the 4-3 through Niklas Persson at 58:46 when the guests had a power play and 6 vs 4 skaters on the ice. For the team from Omsk it was the 4th consecutive win while CSKA's seven-game winning streak was ended.

In the Moscow derby top side Dynamo gained the expected away win against city neighbours Spartak. At 24:54 Marek Kvapil opened the score for the guests before Maxim Solovyov doubled the lead at 40:53. With one of only three shots on goal in the last period Jaroslav Obsut brought Spartak back into the game at 54:19 but Denis Kokarev made everything clear for Dynamo Moscow with his empty netter with 14 seconds left on the clock.

SKA St. Petersburg defended the four-point distance towards Dynamo Moscow at the top of the Western Conference but had more trouble than expected to do so. Already at 07:21 Martins Karsums made it 1-0 for hosts Dinamo Riga. In the secnd period SKA were the better side but needed a power play to tie the game through Norwegian star forward Patrick Thoresen. When the fans already expected overtime to come, it was Viktor Tikhonov who decided the close game in favour of SKA at 56:18.

The closest game of the day was in Ukraine though. Local side Donbass Donetsk lost in the shootout against Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod. Martin Thörnberg used an early power play for the guest lead at 04:21 before Peter Podhradsky scored the equalizer in the very same period. Late in the middle period another import, Lukas Kaspar, even turned the result around completely in favour of the hosts but Mikhail Varnakov used another men advantage for the 2-2 with less than ten minutes left on the clock. Donbass only took two penalties in the whole game and both times they were punished immediately by Torpedo. After a scoreless overtime, Mikhail Varnakov and Martin Thörnberg, who both already scored in regulation, transformed their penalty shot attempts for Torpedo while Vaclav Nedorost was the only successful player for Donbass so that the extra point went to the Russians.