Spartak have finally ended a disappointing run of four straight defeats in the KHL after beating visitors from Avangard 3-1 in Moscow.

­Spartak were on a terrifying run with10 defeats in 10 matches and, surprisingly, traded their captain Oleg Piganovich to Amur for a fifth round draft pick, while Avangard lost two previous games in shootouts.

Both sides also replaced their head coaches recently. Spartak's Andrey Sidorenko and Raimo Summanen from Avangard were looking for their first wins behind the benches.

This season the Red-and-Whites top the KHL statistics only in conceded goals, allowing their opponents to score 116 times.

However this time around it was the hosts who took the lead just five minutes into the game.

Marcel Hossa passed to Aleksander Yunkov, who backhanded it past the goaltender, 1-0 after the opening period.

Three minutes after the restart and Spartak doubled their advantage. Egor Mikhailov came up with a wrist shot from the right circle and Yunkov's brother Mikhail spun around to net the second.

The Siberian side seemed to be confused, but managed to jump back into the game 17 seconds before the second intermission as Aleksander Popov redirected the puck that flew past Ivan Kasutin, 2-1.

However, in the decisive period Spartak managed to withstand Avangard's attacks and added one more.

Aleksey Zavarukhin got a breakaway and couldn't fail to miss the empty net as the visitors had pulled the goaltender, 3-1.

“Everything depends on us,” Spartak’s Egor Mikhailov said. “If we continue to play the way we did tonight I'm sure we can soon forget about the disappointing performances.”  

Avangard suffered their third straight defeat, while Spartak won for only the second time in 12 matches to end their four-match losing streak, sitting nine points short of a playoff spot.