Goaltender Alexei Murygin fell narrowly short of setting a new Russian record for consecutive shut-outs while helping his team to victory against Vityaz.

In his previous outing, a shut-out win over Admiral, Murygin set a KHL record time without conceding a goal and moved to within 39:46 of the all-time Russian mark.

But on 36:01 Roman Horak got on the end of a two-on-one break to finally end Murygin’s goalless sequence on 302:11 – barely three minutes short of another record.

Loko still won the game: Vladislav Kartayev and Emil Galimov found the net before Horak’s goal; Yegor Averin scored into an empty net late on.

SKA back to winning ways

SKA snapped a three-game losing streak with a narrow success at Neftekhimik. Alexander Barabanov settled a nerve-jangling shoot-out, scoring the only goal on Alexander Sudnitsin with the eighth shot of post-game.

Earlier the Gagarin Cup holder had led three times but never managed to assert itself over Neftekhimik. Anton Burdasov’s first-period goal was cancelled out by Igor Polygalov in the second before the teams traded four markers in the third. Ilya Kovalchuk and Evgeny Dadonov brought star power to bear for SKA; Pavel Kulikov and Alexander Kitarov kept Neftekhimik on level terms.

Sochi downs Dynamo in thriller

HC Sochi rallied to beat Dynamo Moscow in an entertaining game on the Black Sea coast.

Two goals in the last 10 minutes put the home team back on the road to victory after Dynamo had turned a 0-2 deficit into a 3-2 lead with a powerful start to the third period.

It started out well for Sochi: Clay Wilson opened the scoring in the sixth minute and one-time Dynamo star Mikhail Anisin doubled the lead in the second period. But the start of the third turned the game upside down as Blue-and-White pressure told. Alexei Tsvetkov reduced the margin before Konstantin Gorovikov scored twice to put the visitor ahead.

Sochi stopper Konstantin Barulin was having a busy evening – he faced 45 shots in total – but the home team made its limited chances count. Yegor Morozov tied it up before Wilson’s pass gave Ben Maxwell the chance to make it 4-3 with three minutes to play.

Around the league

Eastern Conference leader Avangard suffered a fourth defeat in five games after a shoot-out loss at Torpedo. Goals from Nikolai Lemtyugov and Vladimir Sobotka put Avangard 2-1 up in the first period, but Carter Ashton tied it for Torpedo in the third and Vladimir Galuzin settled the shoot-out.

Dinamo Minsk romped to a 6-2 win at home to Barys, with the Kazakhs’ problems compounded by the absence of the suspended Dustin Boyd. Matt Ellison got his second hat-trick in two games to pace the team to victory; Jonathan Cheechoo, Paul Szczechura and Artur Gavrus got the other Minsk goals.

Dinamo Riga won an epic shoot-out at Lada after a 1-1 tie. Miks Indrasis gave the Latvians the edge after 14 shots; he defeated his compatriot Edgars Maskalskis to give Dinamo a 3-2 verdict in the shoot-out. Earlier Andris Dzerins put Riga up early in the second period but Vasily Streltsov tied the scores.

Deron Quint’s overtime goal gave Traktor a 2-1 win over his former club, Spartak. The Moscow men took the lead in the 18th minute thanks to Artyom Voronin but Semyon Kokuyov tied the scores in the second.