The Ice Sheet: Semis Off to a Fast Start - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

After a night without hockey (and boy was it hard to take) we're back and better than ever. Two games to get to this morning and they were both worth the price of admission ... Or the effort of turning on your TV. Whichever. The first game of the night saw the Habs start their series against the Flyers at home. And don't worry folks -- no cars or stores were harmed in the making of this one.

The way the night started at the Bell Centre, it sure seemed like something would be destroyed, but out of anger and not happiness. The visiting Flyers started off the scoring by netting two goals late in the first to take a 2-0 lead into the intermission. Netminder Marty Biron was stellar through the first half of the game as well. He held the Habs in check, even stopping a penalty shot from Andrei Kostitsyn (great move, but an even better save). But that would be null and void, as the brothers Kostitsyn continued their hot play by combining to put the Canadiens on the board. Kovalev would level things a bit later, as he banged home a shot that appeared to be a high stick. Either way it counted, tying the game at 2-2.

And the rest of this game is exactly what people mean when they talk about "playoff hockey." It was fun. It was intense. It was exciting. Joffrey Lupul (yes, that Lupul) put the Flyers up 3-2 only 19 seconds into the third. It wouldn't be until the opposite end of the period that the Habs would finally tie the game. Kovalev scored his second of the night to send this one to overtime, with just over 30 seconds left in the third. The Bell Centre was electric and you sort of knew what would happen next. It's like when you know the phone is going to ring and who you are going to speak with, and then a few seconds later that person actually calls (sure, call me crazy if you like). It went just that quick. Tom Kostopoulos punched in a rebound to end the game and send the Habs faithful home happy.

But were we done yet? Absolutely not.

The second game pitted two old rivals against each other for the first time since 2002. How many times have you heard that in the last 48 hours? If it's more than 400, then you need to read fewer blogs. But with great anticipation usually comes crappy results. Not this time, though. The one and only Paul Stastny put the visitors up early, but the Wings would storm back. They showed why they won the Presidents Trophy, scoring three straight goals to end the first. They added another in the second, also Johan Franzen's second of the night, to make it a 4-1 game.

At this point, we all pretty much thought it was over. Not so. The Avs scored two in the second to cut the gap to one, and history seemed destined to repeat itself ... Or at least send the game to overtime. In an anticlimactic antithesis of the night, the third period was scoreless. The teams combined for only sixteen shots and not one got past Peter Budaj (who had replaced Theodore) or Carey Price Chris Osgood. The game ended 4-3, leaving both home teams with wins on the night by that same margin.

Tonight we'll be treated to two more games, but from different teams. The Rangers take on Pittsburgh at 7pm EST in the early game and later on Dallas heads to San Jose to open that series. It should be another great night of hockey. Enjoy the action, folks!

The Derek Zoolander picture of the night for kids who can't read good:
Is someone in the Detroit marketing department a big fan of the band Incubus?




Your obligatory YouTube
To get you pumped for the Pens/Rangers game tonight, here's ... um ... here's ... Cooking with Scott Gomez!!! Yes. That should certainly get the blood pumping.