Recap of Sunday’s games:
Trade: Zach Bogosian has been traded to Stockholm for two defensemen of similar experience. Bogosian, a reliable part of the Dons
Heavy-hitting Zach Bogosian is now a member of the Stockholm Eagles.
team for 3 and a half seasons, is on target for a fourth season of producing at least 30 points and 200 hits. In Sweden, he will bring toughness and more protection to key skaters like Pavel Datsyuk, Brendan Gallagher and Rick Nash. Bogosian has had 15 fighting majors in his career. Only 7 players have been involved in more fights. Bogosian has the stamina to play on Stockholm’s top pairing with Cam Fowler or Mike Green, but he might slide into the second pairing with another tough guy, Kevin Bieksa. To get Bogosian, Stockholm traded Dmitry Orlov and Jake Muzzin, giving London more young depth. London and Stockholm are currently a point away from each other in the standings, in 8th and 9th place respectively in the Northern Conference, but Stockholm has a game in hand. The trade might be bad news for Marco Scandella, who has had a tenuous grasp on the sixth defenseman spot in London this year. Orlov, who is almost as good a passer as Bogosian, but a lot more disciplined, will play on one of the top two pairings. Jake Gardiner might move up to the top pairing with Kevin Shattenkirk and Muzzin will probably get an audition to be Carl Gunnarsson’s new partner on the third pairing. Muzzin got into just 2 games in Stockholm.
London 4, Geneva 2 – Bogosian earned the third star in his last game in a Dons uniform. It was a convincing win for the home team in England, as they outshot the Generals 41-28. Geneva led 2-0 after a period, thanks to goals from Mike Fisher and Riley Sheahan, but the Dons stormed back with goals coming from Michal Grabner, Jamie McBain, Sam Gagner and Kevin Shattenkirk. Bogosian and Shattenkirk were plus 2 as a pair and each recorded 4 hits and at least one shot block.
Minsk 5, St. Petersburg 3 – The final score should have been more lopsided in the Hussars’ favor Sunday, as they outshot Petrograd 47-14, pouring 17 shots on goal in the second period and another 17 in the third. Still, the outcome of the game was in doubt the whole time. St. Petersburg led 2-0 before Minsk countered with 3 goals in the last 7 minutes of the second period. Minsk built a 4-2 lead but St. Petersburg’s Jeff Petry made it a one-goal game with 3 minutes left as he put in his 5th goal of the season. Minsk added an empty-netter with 6 seconds to play. Minsk’s Ryan McDonagh and Michael Del Zotto were plus 3 with a total of 8 hits and all-star teammate Milan Lucic led everyone in scoring with 3 points, all assists.
Zurich 4, Bern 3 – Ilya Kovalchuk, the league’s top goal scorer, tied the game with 1:28 to play and his Zurich teammate Patrice Bergeron won it with his 19th of the season right after the faceoff to start the overtime period. The tone was set in the game’s first minute of play when Micki Dupont of Zurich picked a fight with Bern’s Kevan Miller. The Bears had three one-goal leads in the game, but every time they led, Zurich fought back to tie it. Bergeron, who atypically did poorly in the faceoff circle, mainly against Jason Spezza, ended as the leading scoring in the game with 3 points. Lion teammate Janne Niskala had the best plus-minus rating – plus 2 – to go along with an assist and 2 blocked shots in 19 minutes of ice time.
Bratislava 6, Athens 2 – Marian Hossa scored two goals – one of them shorthanded – to lead Bratislava to a dominating win on home ice against the suddenly fragile Athens Greeks. Goalie Corey Crawford got the win against his former teammates but Athens was never really able to get sustained pressure on him. Bratislava scored on two of three man-advantage situations and got a good game from Shawn Matthias, who team officials see as an emerging contributor. Matthias spent three seasons as an injury fill-in before getting full-time duty this season for the Eagles and he’s even earned a promotion to the third line thanks to good two-way play that has him second on the team in plus-minus with a plus 17 rating. He also has 9 goals and 10 assists in 40 games. Wei Yang Zhang scored a goal and blocked 3 shots for Bratislava.
Moscow 6, Gothenburg 3 – Two teams near the top of the standings went at it Sunday in Moscow and the Spartak looked like the much better team. Moscow displayed their typical balanced attack and overall game, capitalizing on 3 of their 6 powerplay chances and adding a Duncan Keith shorthanded goal to boot. By the end of the game, they outshot the Devils 48-22, including 22-10 in the wild second period. Andrew Ladd scored two goals and was one of four Spartak players with 2 points in the game. But the leading scorer in the game was Zach Parise of Gothenburg who netted a goal and 2 assists and got a real workout with 34 minutes of ice time. And he hit everything that looked even remotely red and white, dishing out 6 hits. The win moved Moscow into a tie for second place overall in the EURO. Both Spartak and Gothenburg have 66 points and are just 2 points behind Athens, but it’s even tighter than that at the top because Berlin has 65 points and Belfast 64 and both teams have a game in hand over the three leaders.
