After nearly a month away from writing, I’m back … hopefully for an extended stay. Some special projects at work have been keeping me too busy to write lately.
A quick catch-up overview since we last met: Minsk is flying along in first place, looking like the team to beat, but perennial powers Paris, Belfast, Berlin and Moscow will have something to say about that; three teams in the Northern Conference and eight teams in the Southern Conference are tight-rope walking the path to the playoffs. In the individual scoring race, Minsk center Nicklas Backstrom still leads everyone with 43 goals and 49 assists in just 60 games.
Yesterday’s games:
Milan 5, Lisbon 1 – If they want to make the playoffs, the Guerrerio need to do a lot more of what they did on Tuesday: that is, beat a team ahead of them in the standings. Mathis Olimb entered the game with 9 goals on the season and left with 13, which his best ever for a season. Lisbon led 1-0 after a period and it was 1-1 in the second when Olimb went bananas. Andrew Hammond held the fort in the Guerriero end, making 27 saves.
Minsk 3, Oslo 1 – In a match-up of number 1 in the league against number 24, the script played out as planned. The Hussars outshot the Outlaws 41-14, despite being shorthanded five more times.Olivier Roland and Thomas Powell each had a goal and an assist for the winners. Oslo’s Semyon Varlamov made 38 saves to keep the score respectable.
Stockholm 4, Athens 2 – The Eagles scored the game’s first three goals and held off the Greeks in Athens. Both teams played their backup goalies. Jeff Carter, Bryan Little, Riley Nash and rookie Jack Eichel scored for Stockholm, while assistant captain Andrew Ladd and hometown hero Dimitrios Kalyvas scored for Athens. It was Kalyvas’ first tally in 19 games this season.
Bern 4, St. Petersburg 3 (OT) – The Bern Bears squandered a 2-0 lead, then regained the lead on a second-period powerplay, killed off a flurry of penalties right afterward and eventually gained 2 points in the standings thanks to a dramatic push at the end of overtime. Henrik Zetterberg took a solid hit from Brent Burns but kept his balance long enough to throw a pass into the slot to Mika Zibanejad who turned the pass into the game-winning goal with just 22 seconds left in OT. St. Petersburg tied the game two separate times, getting goals from Erik Johnson, Brenden Dillon and Brad Richards.
Bratislava 3, Dublin 2 (OT) – Milan Gulas scored his 19th goal of the season to win it for the Eagles in overtime. Bratislava led 2-0 after a period, but the visiting Fighting Irish managed to tie it up with a second-period goal by defenseman Olexander Pobyedonostsev and a goal in the third period by Jakob Silfverberg.
Paris 6, Moscow 4 – Paris pureed Moscow in France, outshooting Spartak 50-27, but the final score was a relatively close 6-4. In fact, Moscow led 2-0 at one point and the Rouge Eiffels had to score late in the second to get the game tied 3-3 going into the third period. The biggest goal of the game came with 8 minutes remaining in the third period, when the trio of Mike Richards, Michael Ryder and David Perron combined on a pretty passing play to make it 5-3. Still, Moscow wouldn’t give up and got to within a goal thanks to a nice play in front of the net by Kyle Palmieri who notched his 12th goal of the season. Moscow pulled spirited goalie Alexander Salak near the end of the game, but Evgeny Malkin got to a lose puck and swept it to linemate Corey Perry, who scored a long empty-net goal.
