MOSCOW, November 17 (R-Sport) – Sibir Novosibirsk beat visiting Amur Khabarovsk 3-2 on Saturday to put a four-game KHL losing streak firmly behind it.
The hosts scored twice on powerplay in the first period, but Dmitry Tarasov and Jakub Petruzalek both hit the back of the net in the second to level the score.
Finnish forward Jori Lehtera replied with his second goal of the game five minutes from the final horn to seal the victory for Sibir.
Sibir is sixth in the East, 12 points behind leader Traktor Chelyabinsk. Amur is second from bottom in 11th on a six-game losing streak.
Elsewhere, on Friday, Severstal Cherepovets stunned Gagarin Cup holder Dynamo Moscow 4-2 at home as Washington Capital players Alex Ovechkin and Niklas Backstrom each got only one point on assists.
Despite the defeat, the first in the last five games, Dynamo retained the leadership in the West, while Severstal is fifth.
In the game, Dynamo players spent 29 minutes in the penalty box, and Ovechkin was critical of the refereeing decisions after the game.
“The referees had only one team today, Severstal,” Ovechkin was quoted as saying by the Severstal website. “One could say that the penalties, which weren’t that necessary, broke our play in the first, and in the second, and in the third period.”
In Yaroslavl, Lokomotiv beat Lev Prague 2-1 in overtime to clinch its seventh consecutive victory.
Lokomotiv is second in the West and Lev is just inside the playoff zone in eight.
In another game Friday, SKA St. Petersburg came back from two goals down to beat Vityaz Chekhov 3-2 on the road with New Jersey Devils wing Ilya Kovalchuk scoring the winning goal in the last minute of the game.
SKA is third in the West with one point less than Dynamo Moscow and a game in hand, while Vityaz is 11th.
In other games in the West, fourth-placed CSKA Moscow routed Torpedo Nizhniy Novgorod 6-1 on the road and visiting Slovan Bratislava overcame Atlant 2-0 to inflict the 11th consecutive defeat to the team from the Moscow region.
Two-time Gagarin Cup winner Ak Bars Kazan beat Spartak 3-1 in Moscow to put itself in the third place in the Eastern Conference, while 2011 champion Salavat Yulaev Ufa suffered a 4-1 defeat at the hands of newcomer Donbass Donetsk in Ukraine.
In the last game on Friday night, Dinamo Riga beat Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 6-4 at home.
