The Oslo Devils poured it on Tuesday in front of the home fans to tie their first-round playoff series with Dublin. Daniel Sedin put the Devils in front twice – once in the first period and once in the second – but Dublin was able to answer both goals on shots from defensemen Zbynek Michaek and James Wisniewski. But Oslo pulled away with four goals int eh last five minutes of the second period against Fighting Irish goalie Tim Thomas. Mikhail Grabovski scored two of those goals and he completed his hat trick int he third period. Oslo’s top defense pairing of Shea Weber and Ryan Suter, the former Nashville Predators, were spectacular. As a unit, they were plus 5, with Weber blocking 4 shots and being credited with 7 hits. Suter had a goal, an assist and 5 hits. Goalie Jimmy Howard stopped 32 of 34 Dublin shots.
Copenhagen 3, Gothenburg 2
There is another 1-1 playoff series under way in Denmark, where the Tridents won a tight game on a third-period goal by veteran Jamie Langenbrunner. The 36-year-old who plays the right side on Copenhagen’s third line, took a backhand pass from Colin Greening and wristed one past Martin Brodeur with 7:41 remaining. Gothenburg had just tied the game on an Ales Hemsky goal two minutes earlier. Troy Brouwer and Andrej Meszaros scored the other Copenhagen goals, while Ryan Jones opened the scoring in the game for Gothenburg. Jones and Hemsky are both third-line players for Gothenburg and Jones has 3 points in two playoff games to share the team lead in scoring with David Booth. Each team had five powerplays and neither could score. Jonas Hiller rebounded from a questionable first game by stopping all but 2 of Gothernburg’s 29 shots. Brodeur was busier, saving 39 of 42 shots.
Stockholm 2, Edinburgh 0
Cam Ward of Stockholm got the better of Edinburgh’s Ilya Bryzgalov in a goaltender duel in Sweden. Ward shutout the capitals, stopping 24 pucks along the way, while Bryzgalov made 32 saves in the loss. Both of the games goals came in the middle of the first period. Shane Doan opened the scoring with a powerplay tallyfrom slick linemates Loui Ericsson and Eric Staal, before Steve Sullivan scored his second of the playoffs from Travis Hamonic and Jordan Caron. Edinburgh did a nice job against the Staal line, limiting to 4 shots in the game, including at least one with a man advantage. Second-liners Miko Koivu and Ryan Smyth picked up the slack with 5 shots each playing about 16 minutes with Daniel Cleary on the right side. Chris Stewart, playing on Edinburgh’s fourth line, was their most dangerous forward. He managed to fire a team-leading 4 shots on goal in just 7 minutes of ice time. Defensemen Luke Schenn and Andy Greene of Edinburgh blocked 7 shots between them. The Series will move west to Scotland with the Spartans leading 2 games to none.
St. Petersburg 4, London 1
The eighth-seeded Knights got a lot more shots on Lynx goalie Pekka Rinne than they did on Sunday, but the outcome was the same: a 4-1 St. Petersburg win. The shots ended up 33-31 in favor of the conference-leading Lynx, but London put on a strong charge in the third period with 15 shots. David Legwand and Vladimir Sobotka scored for the second time in as many games for Petrograd, while Viktor Stalberg and Marc- Edouard Vlasic also scored. Vlasic also had an assist and was the only player with a multi-point game. London’s lone goal was scored by Michal Grabner with the score already 4-0. St. Petersburg mustered a three-goal outburst in a 1:22 stretch of the first period, prompting London coach Ken Hitchcock to pull starting goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and replace him with Semyon Varlamov. In his 55 minutes of work, Varlamov stopped 24 of 25 shots. Devin Setoguchi had 7 shots on goal for London to lead all players. St. Petersburg’s David Steckel was a force, winning 10 of 12 faceoffs, delivering 3 hits and getting off 4 shots on goal in just 8 minutes. London will have to call up a defenseman to replace Luca Sbisa, who suffered an upper body injury on Tuesday. Marco Scandella is the most likely candidate for promotion, having played 73 games during the regular season, accumulating 6 goals and 16 points while playing minus 3 hockey. The only other real option is 27-year-old Sami Lepisto, who did not play a game for the Knights this season.
