Recap of Tuesday games
Prague 5, Zurich 4 – Ryan Miller stopped Ilya Kovalchuk on a shootout shot that would have kept the Lions alive, and that gave the Prague Siamese Cats a win in enemy territory. After a scoreless first period, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins opened the scoring just 10 seconds into the second period and then Martin Ruzicka of Prague and Zurich’s Patrice Bergeron scored two goals each during the next 19 minutes. In the third, Giulio Scandella notched his 13th of the season and Prague led by 2. But Zurich sent the game into overtime on goals by Jacob Trouba and Kovalchuk. His 40th of the year came on a late power play. Kovalchuk and Bergeron scored 3 points apiece for Zurich, but Nugent-Hopkins had the best offensive game with a goal, 2 assists, 9 shots on goal and the game-winning shootout shot. Prague has an outside chance at making the playoffs still. They are 6 points behind Geneva, which just passed Munich into 8th place in the Southern Conference.
Berlin 3, Helsinki 1 – The Smurfs were angry enough from their loss to Paris to top Helsinki on home ice Tuesday. They played a disciplined game, committing just one minor penalty and they controlled play to outshoot the Jokerit 39-23. Berlin took a 2-0 lead into the third period, when the Jokerit made it interesting with a goal by Jarome Iginla off assists by Mark Methot and Eliezer Sherbatov. But less than 2 minutes later, Berlin regained their 2-goal lead thanks to a goal by Martin Erat, acquired recently off waivers from Bratislava. Berlin’s Matt Carle had a great game. He was plus 2 with 5 blocked shots, 3 hits and an assist on the Erat goal.
Athens 2, London 1 – Jason Pominville scored his 27th goal of the season to break a 1-1 tie in the third period and give the Greeks a win against visiting London. Athens outshot London 39-21 and it was scoreless until there was 4:38 remaining in the second period. That’s when Athens defenseman Staffan Kronwall took a shot from the point that went off the right post and in behind London goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Daniel Sedin scored for London with just 23 seconds left in the period. Pominville and Kronwall each finished with a goal and an assist for the Greeks, who successfully killed off 6 London man advantages.
Geneva 3, Paris 2 – There were only 3 penalties called when Geneva hosted Paris, but all three resulted in power play goals. Paris led 2-0 at one point, but Geneva rallied thanks to a goal late in the first period by Chris Kunitz and power play goals by David Desharnais and Jiri Hudler. Hudler’s cane early in the third period and General goalie Fredrik Andersen was able to stop the 6 shots Paris put on goal in the last period. Karel Rachunek had 2 assists for Geneva and Marian Gaborik, who only had one shot on goal in 23 minutes, concentrated on defense and blocked 3 Paris shots. Geneva jumped over Munich in the standings and into 8th place in the Southern Conference.
Madrid 4, Minsk 2 – A hat trick by Jordan Staal was the main reason Madrid stopped the Minsk Hussars in their tracks Tuesday in Spain. Steal also earned an assist on a Sean Couturier goal. Both men entered the game with 17 goals this season. Jacob Josefson scored a shorthanded goal to ruin the shutout for Madrid Jonas Hiller, and Ryan McDonagh added Minsk’s second goal late in the game. Four Madrid players had 4 shots on goal, but the leader in that category was the Royals’ Gabriel Landeskog with 8. Matt Martin of Minsk tried to change the momentum of the game in the second period by starting a fight with Madrid tough guy Chris Stewart and it cost him a lot. He was judged to be the instigator of the fight – Stewart’s second of the game, by the way – and he was ejected from the game after putting his team on the penalty kill for 2 minutes.
Moscow 5, Oslo 2 – Moscow outshot Oslo 41-24 and won for the 21,178 home fans in attendance. Three Spartak players had multi-point games: Jason Garrison, Aleksey Morozov and Brandon Sutter, who each had a goal and an assist. Garrison also had a game-high 4 hits. Anze Kopitar had a good game for Moscow, scoring a goal on one of his 5 shots and he was 22 of 33 in the face-off circle. With the win, Spartak is back in first place overall in the EURO League. One of their strengths is that they are rarely beaten by power play goals. They have the best penalty killing unit in the league by a healthy 3.7 percent over second place Copenhagen and they hardly take any penalties. Their average of 8.66 penalty minutes per game is the second lowest in the league. Gothenburg averages less – 7.90 minutes – to lead the league.
Tonight: The two Swedish teams will play in Stockholm play and it will be their fifth meeting of the season. Gothenburg won the first three games of the series and Stockholm won the last meeting 4-3. All players are healthy and rested and the goaltending matchup will be Braden Holtby of Stockholm against Anders Lindback, unless coach Guy Boucher opts for Pekka Rinne instead before the game starts. For the second time this week, the Devils play back-to-back games. They will host Prague on Christmas Day.
