Paris and Berlin both advanced to the second round of the playoffs Wednesday in 4-0 sweeps.

Athens Greek forward Vadim Shipachyov scored one of the most important goals of the season thus far.  He swooped in next to the Madrid net, grabbed a loose puck, spun and swept a shot along the ice to beat Tomas Vokoun and win the game in overtime in Spain. The 5-4 victory gave the Greeks a 3-1 lead in the series as it heads back to Athens on Friday.  The goal that came 4 minutes into the third overtime period was Shipachyov’s second of the game and third of the playoffs.  The 20-year-old Russian scored 22 goals in the regular season after 21 his rookie year. But in last year’s playoffs, Shipachyov shined brightly, coming up with 19 points in 16 games. Madrid’s best players Wednesday were Joe Pavelski and  Daniel Cleary.  Pavelski took 7 shots, blocked 5 and was 34 of 59 in faceoffs. Cleary, meanwhile, produced results: 2 goals and 1 assist. The game was a hard-fought one that featured a rematch of Monday’s fight between Theo Peckham of Athens and Roman Polak of Madrid. Game 5: Both teams will be missing banged-up players. The Royals will have to find a replacement for Polak, who got the worst of the rematch. Athens will be missing a defenseman as well, as Niklas Kronwall took too many knocks in 35 minutes of rough and tumble play on Wednesday.  But the biggest lineup blow was a groin injury to T.J. Oshie that occurred in overtime. Oshie was the right wing on the Greeks’ second line with Dimitrios Kalyvas and Ryan O’Reilly to his left. The Greeks don’t have any experienced right wings to plug into that line. They could move Michael Ryder there from the left wing on the third line. Other options for coach John Tortorella are Kyle Palmeiri and Erik Condra. Madrid must play mistake-free hockey in Athens because they have no room for error now. Athens, meanwhile knows Madrid can get hot and stay hot, so they will be looking to end it before the weekend comes.

Jonathan Quick, goalie for the Munich Fox, is the main reason their series with Bratislava is tied at 2 games apiece. The American made 35 saves and his team won 3-2 despite being outshot 37-21.  The big goal was scored in the final period by David Bolland, who had an assist on an Eric Gryba goal in the first period. Bolland has been one of the best Fox players this season. The second-line center was plus 26 and his 73 points was almost equal to what he produced in a season in Copenhagen plus a season in Moscow. Bratislava’s top player Jonathan Toews was contained very well by the Fox, but three Eagles players – Tyler Ennis, Marian Hossa and Weiyang Zhang – filled the void with a total of 16 shots. Game 5: Home ice in this series seems to be as reliable as a coin flip.  Bratislava will try to divide the forward wealth in an effort to make more dangerous lines. What they could really use is more consistency along the blue line.  Munich has still not gotten great play from their top line of Joe Thornton, Patrik Elias and Dany Heatley. If they continue to struggle against Bratislava, the series will be in doubt. If they play like everyone thinks they should, Munich will win.

Berlin was awesome in their sweep of the Bears. They boiled the sport down to a simple mindset: score goals and don’t let them score.  The Smurfs recorded their second 6-3 win in a row and outscored Bern 20-7 in the four games. In every game, Berlin blitzed Bern right from the start. They won Game 1 5-0 and followed that by taking leads of 2-0, 5-0 and 3-0 in their subsequent games. Logan Couture has been the leader of the Smurfs. He scored 4 points Wednesday and leads the team with 8 in the playoffs.

Paris scored twice as many goals as Zurich did in the series and their 4-2 win on Wednesday capped the series. The first period spoke volumes about the frustration Zurich felt playing the Rouges Eiffels. In that period, both teams had 8 shots on goal. Jussi Jokinen scored his first goal of the playoffs to give Zurich an early lead, but that’s when things got really frustrating for the Lions. Zurich took five penalties before the period ended and they allowed Paris goals by Alex Pietrangelo, Corey Perry and Joffrey Lupul. Ilya Kovalchuk made it a 3-2 game in the second period, but Zurich took too many penalties to really grab control. The gave paris 12 powerplays. Perry is leading the way in the scoring department for Paris with 4 goals and 4 assists in 4 games. Evgeny Malkin doesn’t have a playoff goal yet but he has contributed with 7 assists.