Minsk 5, Gothenburg 2 – Minsk leads series 3-2
The home team has taken every game of the series and that’s good news in Minsk. The Hussars played a dominant game, outshooting the Devils 38-22 with Nicklas Backstrom and Patrik Berglund leading the charge with 14 shots between the two of them. Minsk scored first, with Alexander Burmistrov beating Pekka Rinne and they added three more goals by the early third period. Gothenburg got on the board twice in the third period, but they really had no hope of catching Minsk. Gothenburg played an extremely physical game, out-hitting Minsk 34-13, but the aggression might have left gaps on the ice that Minsk was able to exploit. The defense pairing of Michael Del Zotto and Ryan McDonagh helped shut down the Devils’ top line and finished plus 3 for the Hussars. That Devils top line had a miserable night. Jordan Eberle, Adam Henrique and Zach Parise were minus 4 as a unit. For Minsk, Colin Wilson, Jacob Josefson and Burmistrov all had 2-point games. The series will return to Gothenberg for Game 6 with the Devils in a must-win situation.
Belfast 2, Helsinki 1 – Belfast wins series 4-1
In a low-scoring game that had to be decided in overtime, Helsinki’s season came to an end. Belfast did everything they could to make it a high-scoring game, peppering Henrik Lundqvist with 47 shuts, but King Henrik nearly stole the game and forced a Game 6. James Neal beat Lundqvist with his first goal of the series in the second period and Matt Moulson scored the winner on Belfast’s fifth shot in overtime after taking a lead pass from Matt Duchene. Eliezer Sherbatov scored Helsinki’s lone goal, beating Jonathan Quick just 1:06 into the game. Helsinki did a good job of bottling up the top Giants line in the series, as Sidney Crosby, Nazem Kadri and Neal only scored 4 goals in 5 games, but the rest of Belfast’s hard-charging forward corps picked up the slack. Joe Pavelski led the team in scoring with 3 goals and 3 assists. The Giants have the luxury of backing up the Crosby line with Pavelski/Nathan MacKinnon/Ondrej Palat and the very effective third line of Matt Moulson/Vladimir Tarasenko/Matt Duchene.
Edinburgh 3, Copenhagen 1 – Copenhagen leads series 3-2
The Edinburgh Capitals made it loud and clear they still intend to win the series. Copenhagen will have home-ice advantage on Saturday, but they will be facing and newly hungry Edinburgh team. The Capitals opened up a 2-0 lead in the first period on Thursday and never let up the assault on Trident goalie Brian Elliott. The former Zurich backstop came up with 42 saves, but Kari Lehtonen was too stingy in the Edinburgh to allow a Copenhagen comeback. Edinburgh coach Randy Carlyle did a little line shuffling and it paid off. The roster today has Jamie Benn, John Tavares and Olivier Roland (14 shots in the game as the top line); Andrei Kostitsyn, Rick Nash and Tony Martensson (13 shots as the second line) and Brandon Dubinsky, P-M Pouchard and Ales Hemsky (10 shots as the third line).
