Paris took a first-period lead, held their opponent scoreless the rest of the way and won Game 4 against Bratislava 3-1 and they now lead the series by the same count. Alexander Semin had an assist and a goal in the first period to lead the way for the Eiffels, but it was the goaltending of teammate Tuukka Rask that earned the first star. Rask made 31 saves, more than half of them in the final 20-minute period. The second period was  scoreless but it featured the chippy play this series is becoming known for. When coincidental penalties to Jason Krog (Paris) and Christian Ehrhoff (Bratislava) ended with 12:15 left in the second, the teams had only played 2 seconds of 5-on-5 hockey so far that period. That’s 7:43 of penalty time in 7:45 of playing time. There was even a penalty a second after the faceoff that opened the period. The third period started off just as ugly. Patrick Kaleta tried to get something going for his club by taking on Travis Hamonic in a fight just 15 seconds in. The tactic worked, as the Eagles dominated the rest of the game. They outshot paris 17-5 in the third period, but Rask was great. With about 6 minutes to go, he stopped Jonathan Toews on a great scoring opportunity but let the rebound slip away. Marian Hossa of the Eagles flipped a wrist shot that Rask got a pad on, but the puck went right to Toews, who fired it quickly … right into the glove on the end of Rask’s outstretched arm. Game 5: Bratislava coach Bruce Boudreau might be all out of tricks and might have rely on captain Zdeno Chara and young leader Jonathan Toews to pull up the team’s bootstraps.  Kaleta will look to stir up trouble again and he might go after a Paris player earlier in Game 5 than he did Thursday. Paris, meanwhile still hasn’t gotten eye-popping play out of defense stars Kris Letang and Alex Pietrangelo this series, and yet they are a win away from advancing.  A little better performance from those two and Bratislava will be done.

Greek general manager Terry Moutafis gets to go directly from a 4-0 playoff win to watching his favorite soccer team play Japan in the World Cup. With three starters injured and facing elimination,  Athens won and made a strong, strong statement in the process. They wiped the ice with Berlin, outshooting them 52-29. Berlin coach Adam Oates, in trying to explain what happened, said ” Athens unloaded nearly one shot per minute on my goal and showed what an opponent with the season on the line can do.” A powerplay goal by Ian White, his second goal of the playoffs, gave then momentum early in the first period, but two goals late in the period had them standing exceptionally tall going into the first break. Native Greek Demetrios Kalyvas scored his third of the playoffs and that tally was followed soon thereafter by Staffan Kronwall’s first. The only other goal came with under 5 minutes remaining as Bobby Butler, playing on the powerplay, set up Kalyvas for his second goal of the game. Cam Ward stopped 29 shots to shut out the Smurfs. Scotty Hartnell played an inspired game for Athens, leading everyone in shots with 9 and registering 3 hits and 2 blocked shots. White led all in hits with 5. Game 5: The teams will go back to Germany for Game 5, and Athens has some hope that injured players T.J. Oshie and Vadim Shipachyov will be well enough to play. Both are getting closer to being able to play but they will certainly be less than full strength on Saturday. Coach John Tortorella will have an interesting call to make. Berlin was 7-0 against the Greeks this season before the Game 4 loss. They have relied on their titanic top forward line of Logan Couture, Loui Eriksson and Ryan Callahan, who weren’t strong on Thursday but who rarely slump. The Smurfs would like it if the other lines would do more on those rare occasions when the Couture line is not great.