Kovalev’s winning return

Two goals from Nikolai Zherdev and two assists from Janne Niskala helped Atlant to a 4-2 win at struggling CSKA. The visitors were rarely troubled in Moscow, despite two goals for the Army side’s Denis Parshin, and skated to a comfortable win after dominating the first period. Atlant also welcomed back hugely experienced forward Alexei Kovalev after a long injury lay-off; CSKA suffered its seventh successive defeat.

SKA holds off Lev
Table-topping SKA St. Petersburg managed a win at struggling Lev Poprad - but the Slovak side made things harder than expected for the illustrious visitors. It looked like plain sailing as SKA opened up a 3-0 lead by the 22nd minute, with Gleb Klimenko scoring twice to take his tally for the season to 10. But Jaroslav Kristek and Vladimir Mihalik pulled it back to 3-2 and ensured a tense finale.

Dinamo duel
Minsk won the battle of the Dinamos by the narrowest of margins - but only after withstanding a fightback from Riga. The Belarusians looked to be cruising at 2-0 as the game came into the last five minutes, but a double dose of Redlihs - Mikelis scored on 55:01 and brother Jekabs equalized with 47 seconds to play - forced overtime. With no further scoring, it fell to Dmitry Meleshko to take the honors in the shoot-out and keep Dinamo Minsk in second place in the Western Conference.