Oslo 4, Gothenberg 3
Gothenberg fought back to tie the game with 5:28 left on a Daniel Girardi powerplay goal, but Alex Burrows of Oslo dashed Gothenberg hopes with a shorthanded goal with just over a minute left. Oslo was very liberal with hockey rules, giving Gothenberg 11 powerplays, including 3 after Girardi’s goal with 5:28 left. It could be said the Devils were playing with fire, but isn’t that what Devils do? Carl Hagelin of Gothenberg opened the scoring with his 8th of the season and his fourth in about 24 hours. But in the second period, Curtis Glencross scored two goals sandwiched around a Jason Chimera marker. Gothenberg nearly doubled Oslo’s shot total, 38-20, but still lost. Travis Moen of Oslo and Gothenberg’s Milan Lucic fought in the third period.
Helsinki 4, Minsk 0
The Helsinki Jokerit dominated Minsk on Monday, outshooting them 52-19, a performance that should have their goalie, Ilya Bryzgalov, thanking his lucky stars. Bryzgalov earned the shut out and had to make just 5 saves over the last two periods. Helsinki’s big guns were firing, as Martin St. Louis, John Tavares and Paul Syastny all scored first-period goals. Jamie McGinn showed some offense, firing 6 shots on goal in only 9 minutes of play for the Jokerit. Carey Price was the best Hussar, flipping and flopping to make 48 saves in the game.
Milan 6, Dublin 1
Matt Moulson assisted on 3 goals and Dustin Brown scored a pair to lead Milan over the Fighting Irish. Milan, playing in front of a home crowd, outshot Dublin 39-19. Brown is now second in the league in goal scoring with 14, which puts him 5 goals behind Jason Spezza. Steve Ott is putting some good numbers on the board as well. He had an assist and a goal and has now scored 9 times this season.
St. Petersburg 3, Madrid 1
The Lynx continued their ascent in the standings, thanks to good goaltending by Pekka Rinne and two opportunistic goals in the second period. Erik Cole found a mishandled puck in the Madrid zone and zipped a shot through Royal goalie Michal Neuvirth to tie the game, and then about 2 and a half minutes later, the puck took a crazy bounce off the glass dividers and while most everyone was looking to see where it went, St. Petersburg defenseman Jeff Petry got to it and shot it past Neuvirth before the goalie could find the puck with his eyes. Brad Richards added a powerplay goal early in the third period. Madrid had more shots in the game, 27-22, and the Royals offense was extremely balanced, with 7 players getting 3 shots each on Rinne.
London 4, Prague 2
A crowd of 14,750 showed up for this sporting event a day after the Olympics closed to see their Knights take one from Prague. Luca Sbisa was the best player on the ice, scoring a goal and an assist, recording 4 hits and blcoking 2 shots. Also scoring for the Knights were Sean Bergenheim, Zach Bogosian and Brendan Morrow into the empty net. All four of those goal scorers now have a combined total of 10 goals this season, which is how many Prague’s Jason Pominville and Bryan Little have individually. Pominville was held to zero shots on goal Monday and Little managed an assist against Marc Andre Fleury. Eric Brewer and Jussi Jokinen scored for Prague. Neither team’s powerplay found success, going a combined 0-13.
Bratislava 4, Paris 3
The goalies were busy in this game as Tukka Rask of Paris made 36 saves and Bratislava’s Craig Anderson made 30 saves. The Eagles jumped out in front on first-period goals by Tomas Kopecky (his first) and Jonathan Toews, but Alexander Semin and Drew Miller (his first) tied it in the second period. Bratislava regained its two-goal lead on tallies by Martin Hanzal and David Schlemko (his first), and David Perron made it interesting with his third of the season with 5 minutes left to play. Corey Perry of Paris and the Eagles’ Zdeno Chara seem to have soemthing against each other. Twelve seconds into the first meeting of the year between the two teams, they got into a fight. In the first period on Monday, it was Chara-Perry II: The Rematch. It was Chara’s 4th fight of the year, putting him one ahead of teammate Christian Ehrhoff and Gothenberg’s Milan Lucic in that category.
