MOSCOW — Dinamo Riga recorded their first victory of the KHL season on Saturday evening with a 5-1 victory over hosts Spartak.

Going into the game, Spartak were sitting atop the KHL ladder, unbeaten so far this season. Considering Dinamo Riga’s indifferent early season form, they may have been forgiven for falling into a false sense of security. However, in their first away game of the season, Dinamo Riga looked a lot more settled and controlled the flow of the game throughout.

Janis Sprukts got the scoring underway for the visitors in the 11th minute, converting from long range. Spartak did not take long to get back on equal footing with a reply coming from Branko Radavoyevitch on the 17th minute mark. Late in the period, the Latvians were awarded a 2 minute power-play with captain Sandis Ozolins capitalising, scoring his first KHL goal.

Canadian import Mike Iggulden was another to score his first goal in the KHL when he added Dinamo Riga’s third eight minutes through what was an otherwise quiet second period.

Late in the game Spartak were forced to go into full-on attack mode as they attempted to rally for two late goals. However, all they really managed to do was let their guard down on defence, allowing the visitors to score two late goals with Iggulden adding a second for the night in the 18th minute, before Marcel Hossa added the final blow in the 19th minute

Dinamo Riga will be letting out a collective sigh of relief after finally recoding their first win. They will be especially pleased that it has come against one of the early season leading teams. What will however be of some concern to the Latvians is the concussion obtained by vice-captain Martin Kariya. It is not yet known how many games Kariya will miss due to concussion.

Dinamo Riga now travel to Chekhov to take on Vityaz on Tuesday night. It will be another tough assignment for the Latvians with Vityaz currently residing in seventh spot on the 24 team ladder.