With a capacity crowd of 15,450 chanting and singing Irishmen cheering them on, Dublin beat powerful St. Petersburg by a goal Friday to win the playoff series.  The Fighting Irish narrowly knocked off Oslo in seven games in round one, and now St. Petersburg in six games. Next up is a little rest and then a trip to Denmark to start the Northern Conference finals series against Copenhagen. After Friday’s win, Dublin journalists have an interesting question to ponder: What has been the biggest goal in Dublin hockey history? Until Friday, it seemed that the hands-down winner was Tomas Fleischmann’s overtime goal in Game 6 of the Oslo series. If Oslo had scored, Dublin would have been done. But Fleischmann’s tally was hockey’s Heimlich Maneuver and it allowed the Irish to get into a seventh and deciding game that they ended up winning by 3 goals. On Friday, in the waning seconds of a 2-2 game against St. Petersburg, Dublin face a daunting challenge: win it now and eliminate the Lynx, or move on to Russia for another Game 7 against the powerful team which dominated the conference during the regular season.  Curiously, coach Alain Vigneault had Dublin’s fourth line of T.J. Galiardi and 35-year-olds Petr Sykora and Jeff Halpern on the ice for the crucial last minute. Through 13 playoff games, the threesome had a grand total of just 4 points. One would think the objective was to thwart the Lynx a little longer, rest up for 15 minutes, and get on with sudden death overtime. The Irish gained the Petrograd zone and seemed to be just killing time, keeping the puck along the boards. But then Halpern spotted Galiardi open at the “back door” and fired a risky pass in front of goalie Pekka Rinne. Galiardi hammered it into the net with just 40 seconds left and the goal instantly became a candidate for the biggest in the team’s history. Dublin’s win couldn’t be attributed solely to the Galiardi goal, however. They played well the entire game, outshooting St. Petersburg 39-25.  Momentum swung the Lynx’ way early, when David Legwand scored just 45 seconds into the game. But just 30 seconds later, Bobby Ryan tied it. St. Pete retook the lead when Blake Wheeler tallied the only goal of the second period, but with a little less than 13 minutes left in regulation, defenseman Zbynek Michalek tied it again and it remained tied until the Galiardi goal. Dublin took just two penalties, while St. Petersburg penalties gave Dublin’s powerplay units 6 tries. Both game-tying goals were powerplay goals. St. Petersburg’s top line of Brad Richards, Jarome Iginla and Erik Cole failed the team on Friday.  Those three players had just 1, 2 and 2 shots respectively. While the ousting of the Lynx was startling, what happened not long after the game was equally surprising. Even before the players returned to their St. Petersburg homes, team ownership reacted in a harsh manner that hasn’t been seen in Russia since Josef Stalin was running things. They abandoned the team on the spot, relieving team architect and General Manager SergeiP of his duties. St. Petersburg fans are hoping for a new owner, but with the assets left by Sergei, they shouldn’t have a difficult time finding suitors.

Saturday

Bern, with its back up against Elimination Wall, is in Bavaria to play Game 6 against the Fox. Each team is playing without one injured regular. Munich’s Joe Corvo is definitely out for the remainder of the series, while Bern will be without a 100-percent Andy McDonald. The winner of the series will play Geneva in the Southern Conference finals.