HK Nitra take the Group J lead with another win over HC Pilsen, this time 4-2. Read more in Gamecentre.

Group J was notted up with all three teams tied on six points heading into this game, and HK Nitra took a huge step towards advancing to the next round with a 4-2 win in Pilsen. 

At first, it looked like it was going to be easy for the home team. They had some early chances, then in the fifth minute captain Ondrej Kratina opened the scoring by going hard to the net and perfectly re-directing Petr Kadlec's pass past Michal Valent. Four minutes later it was Cramo Top Scorer Dominik Kubalik on the power play, with a one-time slapper from the slot to make it 2-0. But Kubalik's game ended just a few minutes later, when he hit a Nitra player hard in the corner and was given a major penalty for roughing and a game misconduct.

From there, the game seemed to unravel for Pilsen. They ran into some penalty trouble and managed to kill off a two-man disadvantage before the first intermission, but the second period was a disaster. Three Nitra goals, two of them by David Laliberte assisted by Judd Blackwater, sandwiched around Juraj Stefanka's equalizer on an odd-man rush. The large number of Nitra fans in attendance, already energetic from the start, were now going crazy, as was the action on the ice, with numerous altercations and a steady stream to the penalty box on both sides. 

In the third period, Nitra put up a defensive wall that frustrated the Pilsen team terribly. Despite a couple of power plays, they just weren't able to get any excellent scoring chances and the shots they did get were handled by Valent, who stopped 32 of 34 in the game. They finally looked like they might be able to get the equalizer on a late power play, but instead Lukas Paukovcek scored a shorthanded, empty-net goal to secure Nitra's victory and vault the Slovak champs in to first place in Group J. 

Pilsen head coach Michal Straka figured, "We had a really good start, scored on the power play and added a second goal just a bit later. We lost the game because of penalties. Kubalik got a game misconduct, then Lev a 10-minute misconduct," he trailed off in frustration. "Even though we haven't allowed any goals playing shorthanded, we had to mix up the lines all the time because of that. We used just three lines in the third but couldn't score from the chances we created."

"Our first period was not really good," acknowledged Nitra coach Andrej Kmec, "but the guys improved their play and gave their hearts to it - we played exactly the way we wanted. We improved skating and turned the game around on our power play. There were a lot of them, but we allowed no more goals. I have to say many thanks to the 500 or 600 of our fans who came all the way to Pilsen."

Each team has one more game left at home against the Stavanger Oilers. Nitra can wrap up a spot in the final round with a point and top spot with two, whereas Pilsen will need to win their game and might also need a favourable outcome from Nitra.