Penalty killing and goalie Pekka Rinne came to the fore as St. Petersburg won Game 7 and eliminated the Dublin Fighting Irish Monday on the Emerald Isle. The Red Stars delivered the first blow just 9 seconds after the opening puck drop.  St. Petersburg’s Brad Richards won the draw back to Marc-Eduoard Vlasic, who hit Valterri Filpplua with a pass as he broke down the left wing. Filppula got a hard wrist shot off that welcomed Dublin goalie Jonathan Bernier to the playoffs. The puck banged off Bernier’s shoulder and bounced in front of the net. Dublin’s Keith Yandle tried to hit the puck out of the air and clear it, but missed, and Richards, who had been streaking into the slot  was able to swat it up over a sprawling Bernier.  It was the young goalie’s first-ever playoff game. He was called upon to replace 39-year-old Tim Thomas who seemed more and more fatigued as the series wore on.  It had to be a tough call to make for Dublin coach Alain Vigneault and perhaps he was thinking Bernier would be more stubborn playing against his former team.  In his two previous seasons in the EURO League, Bernier couldn’t get into a playoff game because Rinne was entrenched above him on the SP depth chart. On Monday, Rinne was as good as ever. After the Richards goal, Dublin stormed in on him repeatedly in the first period, firing 16 shots his way. But Rinne was impenetrable. And when Brent Burns scored with a blistering slapshot with a little more than a minute to play in the first, Irish fans and players seemed to be gasping for air. Russian defenseman Nikita Nikitin got the Irish back into it with a slapshot that Rinne got just a little of his glove on. But the two-goal lead was restored 10 minutes later when Blake Wheeler bore down on Bernier and fired in his 4th goal of the playoffs. Evander Kane scored his 4th with a minute to go in the second period to make it a one-goal contest. The tense third period was dominated by Dublin, as was every period, but Rinne was great. Halfway through the period, Dublin got a good chance to tie it when fourth-line winger Danis Zaripov was called for elbowing. It would be the fifth powerplay St. Petersburg had granted Dublin in the game, and as in the previous four, the Irish came up empty. Credit penalty killer Vlasic, Willie Mitchell, Artem Anisimov and Olli Jokinen … and mostly Rinne for thwarting the Irish. In the last minute, with Bernier pulled, the Irish drew one more penalty when Wayne Simmonds tripped Phil Kessel.  Bobby Ryan had the best chance in the dying seconds, but again, Rinne made the save. He made 38 in the game, not getting too much help from his teammates who blocked just 5 Dublin shots.  St. Petersburg won 4 of the last 5 games in the series and they will play Copenhagen in the second round.

In a thrilling series that featured a Swedish goalie facing a Swedish team and a Finnish goalie playing a Finnish team, Helsinki blew out Gothenburg before their Sea of Blue fan base in Finland. Until Monday’s Game 7, the series was a see-saw battle that featured three 0ne-goal games. But in Game 7, Gothenburg could never really challenge. They were out-scored 5-1 and outshot 47-23.  What hurt the Devils the most was an undisclosed “upper body injury” suffered by Eric Staal after Game 5, with the Devils leading 3-2 in the series. The big Canadian center is not only the offensive catalyst, but a leader on the ice. Without his presence, the Devils looked flat. In Game 7, it helped get the Jokerit and their fans pumped when two players who hadn’t yet contributed with playoff goals scored on Gothenburg goalie Antti Niemi. Nik Antropov and Brad Marchand scored less than 3 minutes apart and Helsinki left the first period with a 2-0 lead that seemed more like a 4-0 lead. Both Antropov and Marchand scored later in the game and it was 5-0 with just 6 minutes to play when the Devils finally – courtesy of John Carlson – got one past Henirk Lundqvist. Paul Stastny played a quiet first round, but his biggest contribution Monday to the Jokerit cause was in the faceoff circle, where he won 22 of 33 draws. Helsinki will now play Moscow for the right to advance to the Northern Conference finals. Three of the four remaining playoff teams in the conference hail from the Kharlamov Division, with Copenhagen being the lone representative of the Ahearne Division.