Frankfurt 4, Berlin 3 (shoot-out)
Logan Couture of Berlin countered the 2-point night of Frankfurt’s Drew Doughty, Ray Emery was just a tad better than his Smurf counterpart Mika Kiprusoff, as Frankfurt beat their fellow Germans in OT. Frankfurt held a 3-1 lead after the first period, but Couture’s heroics in the second tied the game. Berlin also lost by one goal on Saturday to Helsinki.
Helsinki 6, Stockholm 5 (overtime)
Paul Stastny knows how to make a hat trick really dramatic: make your third goal the winner in overtime. His one-timer in OT was his 6th goal of the season so far. Martin St. Louis assisted on all three Stastny goals. Tuomo Ruutu of Stockholm enjoyed his return to his native Finland, scoring 2 goals and getting five shots on goal in his 10 minutes of playing time. Jokerit has won its last two games by a goal and although they are only 3-5-0, Helsinki is 1 point out of first place in the Kharlamov Division.
London 3, Copenhagen 1
The Knights pulled to within a point of first place Copenhagen and Dublin in the Ahearne Division, as Tyler Seguin notched his 4th and 5th goals of the season against the Tridents’ Robert Luongo. Marco Scandella had two assists in the win for London and Marc-Andre Fleury was stubborn in goal, stopping 33 Copenhagen shots. London, which lost 5-1 in Edinburgh on Saturday, flies to Zurich in the morning for a Tuesday evening game.
Dublin 4, Paris 2
The Fighting Irish outshot Les Rouges Eiffels 37-24 en route to a 4-2 win in front of 15,450 home fans. Jeff Halpern scored twice, including one into an empty net at the end of the game, and Tomas Fleischmann and Olli Jokinen also scored for Dublin. Getting goals for Paris were David Perron on the powerplay for his first of the season and Evgeni Malkin, who tallied his 9th. Dublin did a good job of limiting shots from the point, as Paris’ Mike Green and Kris Letang, as well as two other blueliners failed to get even one puck on Tim Thomas. The two teams played just two days earlier in Paris, with the towers coming out on top 3-2 behind the goaltending of Tuuka Rask. Jose Theodore played for them on Monday. Thomas was in goal for Dublin for both contests.
Minsk 2, Moscow 0
Carey Price turned in a brilliant performance for the Hussars, stopping 31 Dynamo shots and helping Minsk pull into a tie for the division lead. Both teams’ powerplay units were duds, with Moscow going 0 for 8 and Minsk 0 for 5 with the man advantage. More than 18,000 showed up in Minsk for the contest and saw goals by Jakub Voracek and Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson. Ryan McDonough had 3 blocked shots for Minsk, who will play in Paris on Tuesday, while the Dynamo get the day off.
St. Petersburg 6, Milan 3
The team that started the season the slowest blew out a Milan squad that was one of the fastest-starting teams in the EURO. St. Petersburg’s suddenly fearsome attack was led by Brad Richards and Erik Cole, who had 9 and 7 shots on goal, respectively. Cole collected 4 assists and Richards had a goal and 2 assists, while James Neal scored three times for the Lynx on 5 shots. Petrograd peppered Milan’s Antti Niemi with 48 shots on Monday while giving up 30 Milan shots. Milan actually had twice as many powerplay chances (8) than St. Petersburg had, but were only able to score once with the man advantage.
League notes:
Sorry for missing two days. I didn’t get a chance to tell you that Athens snuffed Bern on Sunday to give the Bears their first loss of the year. The Greeks held the line of Jason Spezza, Radim Vrbata and Henrik Zetterberg to a grand total of 3 shots and Tomas Vokoun stopped all but one shot he faced. T.J. Oshie scored for Athens, but Patrick Dwyer’s first of the season was the real killer, a shorthanded goal in the third period that wound up being the game-winner.
