Helsinki 5, Copenhagen 1 – Steve Downie is Helsinki’s leading goal scorer. What? Yes, it’s true and he added two goals to his total Thursday when the Jokerit invaded Copenhagen and dismantled the Tridents. Downie, know more for making people really mad at him, now has 13 goals, which equals the total that teammates Thomas Vanek, Pavel Datsyuk and Brad Marchand have combined. Downie is currently playing on the team’s second line with Vanek and Datsyuk. Copenhagen’s downfall Thursday started in the first period when they took a penalty and then while killing it off, took two more simultaneously. That’ll put you on your heels every time. Paul Stastny scored with a two-man advantage and that got the ball rolling. Helsinki scored 5 goals before Copenhagen could get on the scoreboard with a second left in the second period. Stastny ended with 4 points in the game and Alexander Radulov had 3. Henrik Lundquist made 26 saves for Helsinki to frustrate Copenhagen even more.

St. Petersburg 5, Gothenburg 2 – Artem Anisimov and Brad Richards combined to cause some serious damage for St. Petersburg on Thursday. Anisimov scored two first-period goals while he and Richards were killing off an Erik Johnson penalty for the Red Stars. When the third period started, the score was 2-1 in favor of St. Petersburg with the result definitely in doubt. But Richards and Anisimov connected again with Richards scoring this time and the Red Stars went up 3-1 and never looked back.

Athens 4, Madrid 3 – Andrew Ladd had two goals and an assist and teammate Jason Pominville registered 3 assists to help the Greeks edge visiting Madrid. Athens had a 41-27 advantage in shots on goal, but the game became really close when Colin Greening scored to make it 4-3 with 8 minutes to play. Athens’ Anze Kopitar had 9 shots on goal and scored on one of them for what turned out to be the winning goal. Ladislav Smid contributed to the win with 6 hits and 2 blocked shots. Greening and Sean Couturier both had a goal and an assist for the Royals.

Belfast 4, Edinburgh 3 – Belfast’s forward depth was too challenging for the Capitals on Thursday. Ondrej Palat, Nazem Kadri, Sid Crosby all scored to either give Belfast a lead or extend one, and when Edinburgh fought back to tie it 3-3, Vladimir Tarasenko applied the coupe de grace for Belfast by scoring in the third period. Edinburgh’s Gurkan Cetinkaya was named  the game’s first star with an impressive line score of a goal, an assist, a plus 2 rating, 2 hits and 3 blocked shots. The Turk is the only defenseman on the Capitals team with a positive plus-minus rating at plus 2. His partner on Thursday, Luke Schenn, was a hitting machine with 6 and he also ended the game plus 2. Viktor Hedman and Palat had two points each for the Giants, who have moved up to 4th place overall in the league and first in the Ahearne Division.

Paris 6, Dublin 1 – David Bolland has been hard to notice this season as a member of the star-packed Rouge Eiffels … until Thursday when he seemed to be everywhere. The 30-year-old is one the first year of a two-year contract with Paris after spending seasons with Moscow, Munich and two separate stints with the Tridents. He is on pace for 58 points and what would be his second-best offensive season. He put up 73 points with Munich in Season 3. Against the Fighting Irish, the veteran Bolland won 16 of 24 faceoffs, scored twice, had an assist and did just about everything else you could ask of a fourth-line center and penalty killer. Speaking of penalty killing, the Eiffels tallied twice while shorthanded as Kyle Turris and Ossis Vaananen did the honors. Philipp Grubauer stopped 25 of 26 Dublin shots, with only defenseman Matt Carle able to get one past him.

Moscow 5, Zurich 3 – Moscow came back from a 3-0 deficit scoring 5 unanswered goals in the second and third periods. Goalie Alexander Salak came in in relief for starter Viktor Fasth and the move by Coach Joel Quenneville seemed to wake up his team. Blake Wheeler woke up the most. He had 2 goals in the game, while teammates Rich Peverly and Max Pacioretty each had 2 assists. Ilya Kovalcyuk and Jakub Voracek each had a goal and an assist for the Lions, who were really hurt by penalties in the third period. A too many men on the ice penalty and then an interference call on Markus Granlund both resulted in power play goals for Spartak. Moscow will play Friday at home against Prague, who will have to go without Ryan Getzlaf up the middle. Getzlaf sustained a pretty bad knee injury in his last game. Tomas Plekanec, who played for Dublin in each of the first 5 seasons of the league, will play in Getzlaf’s absence. It will be the Czech veteran’s first game in a Prague uniform.