Minsk joins Omsk

Dinamo Minsk and Avangard Omsk are joint league leaders after Saturday’s games.

The unbeatable Yeryomenko
Dynamo Moscow had goaltender Alexander Yeryomenko to thank after a shoot-out win over Avangard Omsk. The two teams, among the leaders in this season's championship, played out a 0-0 tie, with Yeryomenko making 21 saves in regulation time. While ex-Dynamo man Alexei Kalyuzhny sin-binned in overtime, the Blue-and-Whites came close to winning it before the shoot-out, but could not find a way past Karri Ramo from open play. In the shoot-out Yeryomenko remained unbeatable, saving from Alexander Perezhogin and Roman Cervenka, while Vyacheslav Kozlov and Marek Kvapil were on the mark for Dynamo.

Minsk joins the leaders
Avangard’s point from that game put them on 21 points - one more than Dynamo and Amur - but by the end of the evening they were joined by Dinamo Minsk. It took just 127 seconds for the Belarusians to see off Metallurg Novokuznetsk: in that time goals from Zbynek Irgl and Alexander Kulakov gave them a 2-0 lead. Metallurg immediately replaced goaltender Alexander Lazushin with Teemu Lassila but couldn’t find a way back into the game and Teemu Laine added a third for Minsk in the final period.

Salavat success
A powerplay goal on 48:48 from Vitaly Atyushov was enough to give Salavat Yulaev Ufa a 2-1 win at Barys Astana. Viktor Kozlov had given the visitors the lead in the second period, but Nigel Dawes leveled almost immediately for Barys. The win moves Salavat up to third in the Chernyshev division.