BRATISLAVA -- The road weary Rangers showed very little jump in the first period and trail 1-0 heading into the dressing room for the first intermission. Ivan Svarny's power-play goal at 8:22 is the difference. Slovan holds a 12-6 advantage in shots on goal.

The Rangers penalty kill, which was burned by Svarny, got better later in the period when it had to kill off back-to-back minors to Brian Boyle and Steve Eminger that including a 5-on-3 for 21 seconds.

Boyle went off for boarding at 15:59 and Eminger was called for cross checking at 17:38.

Near the end of the 5-on-3, Henrik Lundqvist came across his crease to make a sharp pad save on a redirect to keep the deficit at only 1-0.

The atmosphere inside Slovnaft Arena is spectacular. The fans are cheering just about everything. They, of course, love Marian Gaborik.

Second period coming soon.

Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter at: @drosennhl

BRATISLAVA -- With Mike Rupp in the penalty box for hooking, HC Slovan struck for a power-play goal to take a 1-0 lead with 11:18 to play in the first period.

Ivan Svarny set up shop at the top of the blue line and rifled a low snap shot that cleared the screens in front of Henrik Lundqvist and beat the Rangers goalie on his glove side. Michal Macho and ex-NHLer Miroslav Satan picked up the assists.

With just under 10 minutes remaining now, Slovan holds a 1-0 lead and a 7-3 advantage in shots on goal.

Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter at: @drosennhl

Rene Corbet is from is from Victoriaville, Quebec and was a second-round pick by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1991 Entry Draft. Today, he lives and works in Calgary, a place in which he played 68 of his 362 NHL games during a nine-year career that ended in 2001.

But, it was here in Mannheim that Corbet found his hockey home. After leaving the Pittsburgh Penguins iN 2001 -- the final stop in a five-team journey across the NHL -- Corbet decided to give Germany a try. He signed with the Mannheim franchise after leaving the Penguins and ended up staying for eight years.

Tuesday night, he will have his number retired before Adler plays the Buffalo Sabres in a NHL Challenge game at SAP Arena.

"I never expected anybody to retire my number," Corbet told NHL.com minutes after arriving at SAP Arena straight from his flight on Sunday. "It's certainly an honor. I have a lot of memories from this team in the eight years I was here . That was a really special time. I have two boys that were born in Germany. This is a special place for me.

"It's unbelievable. It's a class organization and they took such good care of me for eight years. It's hard to stay in one place that long in Europe."

Corbet helped manheim win a DEL title during his time with the club -- a memory that he considers his most fond from his time in Germany -- and finished with 111 goals and 96 assists in 266 DEL games.

The Sabres quickly learned Tuesday's exhibition game against the Adler Mannheim hosts could pose several problems.

The building is built in such a way that the fans -- even in the top sections -- are extremely close to the ice. Plus, the area behind the goal Mannheim protects twice is a standing-only section that is jammed with the team's most ardent supporters. They sing and clap throughout the game, which can be a disruptive force for an opposition unused to such tactics.

But, by far, the biggest challenge will be adapting to the bigger ice surface as the SAP Arena features an Olympic-sized sheet of ice.

After Sunday's practice, Tomas Vanek called it an ocean, referring to the extra room in the Corners of the offensive zone. Goalie Ryan Miller, meanwhile, was talking about how his angles were a bit off and how he had to fight the tendency to move too far side-to-side when tracking rushes. He says his visual clues are all off because of the wider ice surface.

Lindy Ruff knows his team will have some issues with the big ice, but he is grateful Tuesday's game is the only one that will be played on the Olympic-sized surface. The NHL Premiere games in Helsinki and Berlin will be played on NHL-sized ice sheets.

"You'll see a little bit of difference in the game (Tuesday)," Ruff said. "Outside the (faceoff) dots, you have the extra 20 feet that players can use, but inside the dots you are looking at the same game from the dots-in.  IF you make sure you are playing on the inside, you usually play well. If you get caught on the outside and handling the puck, you can look pretty good -- but you generally don't get too much done. In our case, it is to try to play our (NHL) game on this ice."

HELSINKI -- This trip to Finland will be a celebration of the three native players who play for the Anaheim Ducks, but they aren't alone in their heritage.

Ducks coach Randy Carlyle also has roots in this Scandinavian country to the northwest of the Baltic Sea.

"My grandparents were from Finland," Carlyle said. "They were born and raised in Finland and then they moved to Canada. My grandfather was a carpenter and they moved to Sudbury, Ontario area."

When the Ducks got off to a slow start last season, media members and disgruntled fans questioned whether Carlyle's job was in jeopardy, but general manager Bob Murray's confidence was rewarded as the Ducks made the playoffs despite losing starting goaltender Jonas Hiller for the stretch run.

It was a coaching performance that could have been worthy of a Jack Adams award nomination, but there is no question Carlyle is one of the top bench bosses in the League. His 266 wins are by far the most in franchise history, and Carlyle's led the Ducks to the playoffs in five of his six seasons -- not to mention a Stanley Cup victory in 2007.

The Western Conference was the tougher of the two last season, and major additions in Los Angeles, San Jose and Columbus aren't going to make it any easier, but with a healthy Hiller and the return of Teemu Selanne for another season the Ducks should battle San Jose and Los Angeles for Pacific Division supremacy.

"We feel that we have a hockey club here that can challenge for a playoff position," Carlyle said. "Once you get in, it is wide open."

Before that, the Ducks will spend the week here in Scandinavia, playing an exhibition game and two regular-season contests while also enjoying some of the benefits of an NHL-sponsored European vacation.

"For us as a coaching staff, it gives you an opportunity to have the team together, a little bit of team bonding and team building," Carlyle said. "We'll spend the week together, and there will be a few events that the team participates in. They're will be a team dinner. We can practice as a group right here. We don't have to change facilities.

"For our players we think it is a new experience, and we're here representing the NHL. Any chance you have as a partner of the NHL to spread your wings and be involved on an international basis helps sell the game to the international community with the NHL brand, I think you have to take it and take it very, very seriously. We have to put our best foot forward, not only for the NHL but for the Anaheim Ducks organization and we're very, very happy to do that."

One big adjustment for the Ducks this week will be the weather. It was a beautiful, sunny day in Helsinki, but the temperature isn't expected to reach 60 degrees all week while the lows are likely to be in the low-to-mid 40s.

Carlyle was one member of the Ducks who wasn't complaining.

"Hopefully the weather stays nice," he said. "Being from California, all we ever see is sun and heat, and being from Northern Ontario, this is very close to where I lived and grew up in Sudbury. Deep lakes, pine forests -- it is fall, and that is a little bit of a change for us."

HELSINKI -- Tony Lydman wants to play in front of his countrymen Friday when the Anaheim Ducks face the Buffalo Sabres here at Hartwall Areena, but a decision on his status for that season-opening contest has yet to be determined.

Lydman, a Lahti, Finland, native, had surgery to repair the torn labrum in his left shoulder in May, and it is unclear if he will be allowed to play against Buffalo.

"Right now we're carrying seven defensemen and 14 forwards and three goaltenders, but Lydman isn't in that group," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "He'll have to go on injured reserve by Thursday. There will be a decision that has to be made here as we go through practice. We're not ruling him out, but his timeframe to play -- he'd be ahead of schedule if we were to use him this weekend. He's had major shoulder surgery and the timeframe they've given us was sometime in mid-October.

Lydman was on the ice with the rest of the Ducks at practice Sunday morning. The team will practice again Monday, Wednesday and Thursday with an exhibition game Tuesday against Jokerit.

The 34-year-old defenseman spent his first two years as a professional with Tappara in SM-liiga, but he also played two seasons with Jokerit's rival in Helsinki, HIFK. He also played for HIFK during the lockout in 2004-05.

"I'm close to playing, and I hope to be able to play, but nothing is sure yet," Lydman said. 

Added Carlyle: "If you watch him skate and practice it doesn't look like anything is wrong with him, but those things do take time to heal."

Carlyle has two other players who are questionable for the game Friday. Defenseman Kurtis Foster had surgery to repair the metal plate in his leg two weeks ago. Foster had the plate inserted after his leg was broken two seasons ago, and a loose wire from the plate was cutting into the muscle in his leg.

Left wing Matt Beleskey also had surgery to repair a torn labrum in May, and is on a similar timetable to Lydman. The Ducks brought extra defensemen to Finland specifically as insurance in case Lydman and/or Foster aren't ready.

HELSINKI -- The Anaheim Ducks will have a new "Big Three" this week, because Finnish natives Teemu Selanne, Saku Koivu and Tony Lydman are clearly the players everyone wants to see and meet this week.

A few members of one of the team’s in Jokerit’s youth hockey system were about to get on a bus this morning, but many of them wandered over to the entrance of "The Cave," which is what Hartwall Areena’s practice rink is affectionately called, and waited to see if the Ducks would come out that way after their practice was complete.

The team flew from California to Newark, N.J., for refueling yesterday and onto Helsinki where they arrived this morning. They were scheduled to practice at Hartwall at noon, but decided to go straight to the rink and were practicing by 11 a.m. or so.

Everyone was on the ice inside "The Cave" -- and trust me, it really feels like you’re in a bunker or a cave down there -- for the Ducks in a spirited practice despite the travel. All eight defensemen and three goalies who made the trip went through practice. There were no surprises with the forward lines:

Ryan-Getzlaf-Perry (white)

Blake-Koivu-Selanne (red)

(Smith-Pelley)-Cogliano-Gordon (orange)

Parros-McMillan-McGrattan-Beleskey-Macenauer (grey)

The three Finns shared the media spotlight today, while coach Randy Carlyle also spent about 15 minutes answering questions from about a dozen members of the local media. Anaheim will be back at Hartwall Areena for practice Monday, which is scheduled for an early afternoon start.

BRATISLAVA -- Rangers coach John Tortorella said Saturday that Sean Avery and Erik Christensen are vying for the final roster spot before the team gets to Stockholm to open the regular season.

Well, Christensen is in the lineup tonight against HC Slovan, and Avery is scratched. Read into that what you will, but I'll find out more of Tortorella's reasoning after the game.

I thought he would play them both tonight and Monday in Zug, and judge off of those performances, but clearly Tortorella has a different plan.

Wojtek Wolski is the other forward scratched, but he played in both Prague and Gothenburg.

Henrik Lundqvist will start in net for the Rangers and be backed up by Martin Biron.

Dan Girardi, who hasn't played yet here in Europe, will be on the top defensive pair with Ryan McDonagh. The Rangers have only six healthy defensemen here with Michael Sauer still out with a shoulder injury and Marc Staal back in the U.S.

Michael Del Zotto, Steve Eminger, Brendan Bell and Stu Bickel round out the Rangers D corps tonight.

Brian Boyle will get a look as the left wing on the top line with Brad Richards and Marian Gaborik. Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Callahan and Artem Anisimov will play together again. That seems to be the Rangers second line for the moment, and will be to start the season provided Tortorella feels comfortable with either Wolski or perhaps even Boyle on the top line with Richards and Gaborik.

Christensen, Brandon Prust and Ruslan Fedotenko make up the third line. The fourth line is Derek Stepan with Mats Zuccarello and Mike Rupp.

One noticeable name on the Slovan roster is Miroslav Satan.

Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter at: @drosennhl

The Buffalo Sabres brought 24 players to Europe and could open ther season with this lineup -- minus emergency goalie Drew MacIntyre, who is here on a roster exemption.

Of those 23 players, Luje Adam might be the biggest surprise. The young forward, taken in the second round in 2008, has taken advantage of some injuries (Jochen hecht) and suspensions (Brad Boyes) to really open the eyes of the coaching staff.

During Sunday's practice, Luke centered a line with Thomas Vanek and Jason Pominville and could play in that role in Tuesday's exhibition game against Adler Manheim. With Adam in that spot, Drew Stafford moved up to play on a line with Nathan Gerbe and Derek Roy, while Boyes played with Ville Leino and Tyler Ennis. The fourth line was a rotating trio of fashioned from four forwards --  Patrick Kaleta, Paul Gaustad, Matt Ellis and Cody McCormick -- while Hecht took part while wearing a non-contact jersey.

So, can the 21-year old Luke make the Sabres after his first pro season, which saw him score 62 points in 57 AHL games, as well as 4 points in a 19-game cameo with the Sabres?

"Right now, we are still in the evaluation process, you know," Ruff said. Derek (Roy) is coming off injury. We'll  take another look at Luke (Tuesday) night. I think he has played well. Brad Boyes is coming off injury and I thought his last game was his best one. There are players pushing for ice time and position right now."

The Buffalo Sabres arrived in Mannheim, Germany Sunday morning and imnmediately made their way to the rink for a one-hour practice at SAP Arena that was heavy on skating drills.

Coach Lindy Ruff planned both the time and content of practice to give his team the best chance to get accilimated to European time. The club travelled overnight from Buffalo and landed at approximately 9 a.m. local time. By noon, 6 a.m. on their bo0dy clocks, they were on the ice for a pretty spirited practice.

“I think to just get the legs underneath you, and break up what’s going to be a long day. We want to try and stay on schedule, and make sure that everybody stays up and gets back on what would be our North American schedule,” he explained. “We have stressed the importance of staying on schedule, and not laying down and ending up with a three-hour nap and then you can’t sleep during the night.

“I actually thought they looked pretty good. We kept it a little on the lighter side. But overall I thought the boys skated pretty well.”

The players, who did not seem to sleep much on the trans-Atlantic flight, were happy for the chance to do something
upon arrival, if only to kill some time until they can shut it down tonight.

"I think the idea is to fight it for six or seven more hours and try to get to bed at 7:30 or 8 p.m.," goalie Ryan Miller told NHL.com. "I'm not going to make it much longer than that. Maybe a little bit of food and hopefully there is something to do for awhile."