BRATISLAVA, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- After conquering the third-ranked Bratislava in OT and losing to Poprad also in OT in the previous two rounds, the second-worst team of the league Nove Zamky was close to another surprising upset but the Tipsport Liga leader Kosice managed to keep its opponent at bay and returned home with a close 5-4 victory on Friday.
A defeat would mean surrendering the top position to Banska Bystrica which is waiting for its chance to dethrone Slovakia's most successful hockey team, trailing Kosice by just a single point.
After an evenly-balanced 2-2 introductory period, Kosice managed to build a two-goal lead in the second thanks to three consecutive shots ending up in the home team's net that Nove Zamky failed to answer.
Nine different scorers managed to get on the scoreboard in the attractive and much-closer-than-expected nine-goal game.
Banska Bystrica is staying in the chase for pole position thanks to a clear 5-1 victory against the 10th team of the Tipsport Liga standings Detva.
The visitors were evidently out of luck, scoring their first goal of the game one second after the first buzzer and thus the referee had no choice but to call Detva's attempt at getting back into the game void. Samuel Mlynarovic led the scoring department with two goals, helping the last season's champions stretch the series of wins to a solid seven in a row.
In the central region of Slovakia, Bratislava had little trouble defeating the last-placed Liptovsky Mikulas. The visitors put the lopsided game away at 5-2 with the league's most productive player Jindrich Abdul adding three points to his collection for assisting on three goals of the visitors' five different scorers.
In the north of the country, Poprad is eyeing the fourth spot in the rankings thanks to defeating its current holder Trencin 3-1 in a direct confrontation, trailing by a single point behind both Trencin and Zvolen.
The home team, which introduced several new additions to its roster on Friday and two of them - the Americans Adam Larkin and Jimmy Lodge - secured the victory with their first goals of the season. Samuel Takac sealed the deal for Poprad with an empty-netter.
In a direct battle for the seventh spot in the rankings, the team of Miskolc (one of two Hungarian teams playing in the Slovak league) defended its favorable position thanks to a hard-earned 3-1 victory in Nitra.
The visitors managed to rain on Nitra's parade with an early shorthanded goal and although the home team tied things up in the second, Jesse Dudas gave Miskolc the much-needed edge with a goal and an assist.
The last match of the 39th round featured a solid turnaround by Zvolen. Igor Safaraleyev assisted on two goals that put the visitors from Michalovce ahead but Zvolen countered with four consecutive goals to turn the tide.
The home team's veteran forward Rastislav Spirko scored twice and assisted on another one to lead his team to a 4-2 victory, tying Trencin's fourth spot in the rankings with 62 points.
On Wednesday, the two Hungarian teams of the league, Budapest and Miskolc, battled it out in a national derby. Budapest started strong with three consecutive goals in the first period.
Miskolc's Balint Magosi sounded the counter-attack trumpet in the second period with two goals but failed to bring the tying-efforts to fruition, the visitors succumbing to Budapest 2-3.
