hockey

The San Jose Sharks could have saved the National Hockey League a lot of time and trouble by announcing at the start of the playoffs that they'd be the same offensive powerhouse this postseason that they've been in the last two. The league could have elevated some other Western Conference team to take their place, and the game would be better for it.

Even in the pre-game antics for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals Wednesday night, fans were still reminded for their own safety that pucks may be propelled into the spectator area, but the standard Mellon Arena sellout might have been more at ease had the Pittsburgh Penguins simply announced that no pucks could be propelled into the net behind Marc-Andre Fleury.

Ah, the first round of the NHL playoffs, a time when hope springs eternal; when Cinderella is still prepping for the ball, with midnight many hours away.

The key to a good run in the NHL playoffs is not how many games you win down the stretch in the regular season, but how well you are playing.

There are only a few silly days left in the hockey season before things get serious, so we'll kill some time with a brief assertion: The San Jose Sharks will have the best record, and win no trophies other than the Presidents' Trophy for having the best record.
That is, no trophies outside the Stanley Cup, which is its own argument.

Anyone who has tracked this star-crossed centennial season shouldn't have been surprised by the latest turn of events for the Montreal Canadiens.

The National Hockey League's efforts to put at least some curbs on fighting and hits to the head could disappear in a nasty partisan brawl come June.

It was early in the game and the Carolina Hurricanes were sluggish when Tim Conboy decided enough was enough.
Before a faceoff, the Canes forward looked over at Chris Stewart of the Colorado Avalanche and invited him to face off and fight.
"I asked him and he said, 'Sure, I'll go with you,'" Conboy said.

Some 29 general managers took the temperature of the NHL Wednesday, forecast rainy days ahead and decided to chart a slow and cautious course at the 2009 trade deadline.
Only one decided to roll the dice. That would be the Calgary Flames' Darryl Sutter, and who really was surprised?

It is a mix, part opera, part Allo Police, unique to one team, to one town, to the most important hockey franchise on earth.