Martin St. Louis broke open a tie game in the third period with two goals just 11 seconds apart to lead the Gothenburg Devils to a 7-5 win and 3-2 series lead against the Helsinki Jokerit Thursday. The goals gave St. Louis a hat trick in the game. He opened the scoring 57 seconds into the contest to take the blue-clad home crowd out of it early. The play of the 38-year-old St. Louis is a haunting of sorts for the Jokerit. St. Louis was once property of Helsinki. On Nov. 16, 2013 (WSH calendar), St. Petersburg dealt Jarome Iginla to the Jokerit for St. Louis and Helsinki’s third-round pick in this year’s draft. Early this season, Gothenburg gave up Ales Hemsky, Devante Smith-Pelley and a 2016 second-round pick to get St. Louis, who has 7 points in 5 games this series. Iginla has a goal and 3 assists. Helsinki didn’t fade away after St. Louis’ quick goals, as Nerius Alisauskas scored and then Paul Stastny did as well, but Gothenburg was able to counter both tallies. It’s not often Henrik Lundqvist gives up 7 goals in a game, but St. Louis and crew, and especially Devil goalie Antti Niemi, were glad he did. Gothenburg’s Adam Henrique was a wiz with the puck Thursday, picking up 4 assists, while teammate Carl Hagelin scored 3 points. Game 6: Staal is out with an injury. That will certainly aid Helsinki’s cause. Ryan Clowe and Cody Eakin were both minus 4 in Game 5. Nobody affiliated with Finland is happy about that. They and Lundqvist must do better on Saturday. The biggest problem for Helsinki is that their home loss switches home-ice advantage to the team with the best home record in the league for what could be an elimination game. Dylan Callow, GM of the Copenhagen Tridents, calculated that Gothenburg is 30-0 this year when scoring 5 or more goals and 45-7 when scoring fewer than 5.

The St. Petersburg Red Stars said “not so fast” to the Dublin Fighting Irish, drubbing them 5-2 in front of Irish fans who were hoping to celebrate a Round 1 clinching win. The home team outshot St. Petersburg 32-26, but the visitors pierced Tim Thomas’ armor for 5 goals before Dublin could get their first on Pekka Rinne. Red Star defenseman Jeff Petry scored twice and was named the game’s first star. Erik Cole scored a goal and an assist for St. Petersburg, while teammate Valtteri Filppula had two assists.  The top line in Dublin – Ryan Kesler, Phil Kessel and Bobby Ryan – clicked for two goals, but they game way too late to worry the Red Stars.  Marc-Edoaurd Vlasic played well for St. Petersburg, getting an assist, 2 hits and 3 blocked shots. Game 6: The win Thursday helped, but Petrograd still needs two more wins in two games to assure more paychecks this season. It would really help is Blake Wheeler and Brent Burns would contribute more offense than the 2 points each has come up with so far in the series. This has been a very high-scoring series with between 7 and 10 goals scored every game. So far, that tempo has been better for Dublin and Ryan Kesler, who has 10 points in 5 games.  Dublin has shown no signs of letting up. They outshot St. Petersburg on Thursday and if it wasn’t for an uncharacteristic second period, they might have gotten through to the second round already. Fans should expect another surge of fast skating by the men in green.

Moscow has won their series against Edinburgh thanks to a strong first-period in a one-goal game. Moscow was outshot by the Capitals 30-27, but the four goals they scored in the game’s first 10 minutes allowed them to settle into a more methodical game. Edinburgh had to make all the high-risk plays and they almost came back to tie. The proverbial back-breaker occurred 12 seconds after Edinburgh’s Kyle Wellwood went to the penalty box for a tripping infraction at the Moscow blue line. Alexei Kalyuzhny scored on the ensuing powerplay – his second of the game – to make the score 6-3.  The 3-goal deficit was just too much to make up against a team as experienced and disciplined as Spartak. Moscow’s Chris Higgins, normally known as a defensive forward, had a goal and 3 assists in the game.

After his third-period collapse in Game 3 that gave the upstart Minsk Hussars a 2-1 lead in the series, Roberto Luongo of Copenhagen has responded with two straight shut-outs. A 27-performance on Tuesday was followed by a 20-save clean sheet Thursday. The Tridents now lead 3-2 heading into Game 6 in Belarus. In Game 5, the Tridents outshot Minsk in every period and 41-20 overall. Matt Moulson scored his first two goals of the playoffs after Shea Weber notched his second. Stephen Weiss followed with his first of the playoffs to make it 4-0 early in the second period. All four goals were scored on the powerplay. Discipline – or perhaps the officiating – was a huge factor in the game as Minsk gave Copenhagen 10 powerplay chances and the Tridents weren’t called for even one penalty. There was a lot of hitting, however. Ryan McDonagh had 7 hits and Patrik Berglund 5, while Copenhagen’s leading hitters were the two forwards who broke out of their goal-less slumps. Moulson registered 6 hits and Weiss 5. Game 6: The games that Moulson and Weiss put together Thursday were fantastic and it seems both are now ready to go full throttle, which hadn’t been the case until now. And with Luongo on a roll, Copenhagen seems to have unstoppable momentum. Minsk will hope the home team can help them get through one elimination game and on to a winner-take-all Game 7. The first step will be getting a puck past Luongo. Having Nicklas Backstrom in the lineup would have helped. Coach Claude Julien will have to coax the goals out of his very young players somehow.