A woman looks at a drawing of the EURO Cup today in Madrid, where tonight’s game against Berlin could leave one of the teams out of the playoff race.

The Berlin Smurfs face a must-win game this evening when they play Madrid, and if they win, they will go into must-pray mode.

Currently listed as the starting goalies are Tomas Vokoun for Madrid, and his former backup, rookie Erik Ersberg, who was traded to Berlin this season. Madrid has won two of the teams’ previous three meetings, one of them in a shootout. 

It could be a deciding game for all three of the teams fighting for the last playoff berth in the Southern Conference. A Berlin win would eliminate Madrid, who would be 6 points out (5 if it is an overtime loss) with two games to play. But even if that happens, Berlin will still have to wait – an agonizingly long 9 days – to see what Milan does in their final two games. The Guerriero have a home game against Helsinki on Sunday and nearly a week later, a game against the defending champs in Geneva.

A Madrid win tonight would put the Royals 2 points behind Milan with 2 games remaining for each team. Berlin’s regular season schedule ends tonight. It’s unclear who would take the spot if all three teams end up with 83 points, but Madrid would have the most wins, which – we think – is the tie-breaking criterion. If it is, Berlin could sneak in without getting a point tonight, but Milan and Madrid would both have to lose their remaining games and Madrid would have to lose at least one of them in 60 minutes of regulation time.

And for Milan, a team hobbling into the homestretch minus three injured players including goalie Antti Niemi, a win and a tie in their remaining two games would send them into the playoffs.

The Battle for Eighth in the Southern Conference is the most interesting story line in the EURO League at the moment. The Northern Conference playoff teams have been decided for a while, with Copenhagen en route to a President’s Trophy.

As for individual statistics, the biggest news comes from Dublin, where Ryan Kesler will win the scoring title and linemate Bobby Ryan will end with the most goals. Ryan has already broken the EURO record for most goals in a season with 56. Steven Stamkos of Frankfurt tallied 55 times to lead the league last season. Stamkos racked up 129 points last season and Kesler would have to score 12 points in his remaining 5 games to tie that mark.

Here are some more notes on individual statistics:

• Athens defenseman Staffan Kronwall could end his first year in the league atop the penalty minutes column. He has already passed Milan Lucic’s record total from last year. Only PK Subban of Belfast stands a real chance of catching him.
• Madrid’s Joe Pavelski leads the league in shots and he is 5 goals away from becoming the league’s second 50-goal scorer this season. He also leads Ryan 12-11 in game-winning goals this season.
• Troy Brouwer is trying to fend off defense partner Andrej Meszaros and Paris’ Ossi Vaananen for the plus-minus title.
• She Weber of Oslo, who is among the top plus-minus players, will end the season atop the hits column. He has a record 304 at the moment.
• Two young London defensemen are among the league leaders in shot blocking. Zach Bogosian is fourth with 122, while teammate Jake Gardiner will likely finish first. He has blocked a record 142, which are 10 more than second-place Cam Fowler of Stockholm has blocked.
• Stamkos has the league lead in takeaways with 161, while Paul Stastny of Helsinki has the most giveaways thus far with 152, unfortunately for him, a single-season record.  David Backes of Athens is second in both categories.
• Prague center Ryan Getzlaf has been in the most fights this season (9), and has won 4 of them. One more fight would set a league record. Both Brandon Prust of Madrid and Zdeno Chara of Bratislava had 9 fights last season.
• The top faceoff man among regular centers is Patrice Bergeron of Zurich. He has won the puck 60.2 percent of the time.
• In goal, Jonathan Quick of the Munich Fox is atop both the goals against and save percentage columns. Barring a cave-in of goals, he will fight off Copenhagen’s Roberto Luongo for the GAA title and St. Petersburg’s Pekka Rinne and Helsinki netminder Henrik Lundquist for the save percentage title.