Posts by Eric Mcerlain at 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 seeing the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs speed by us at Mach 2, it seems as if we're in for something of a re-run in the Conference Finals, as the higher seeds both held serve on home ice to take a 2-0 series lead -- something our roundtable participants seemed to think was sure to be something of a death sentence for the lower seeds.

After Game One in Pittsburgh, Flyers head coach John Stevens said he wanted his team to cut down on the turnovers and bring a more physical game to the ice for Game Two against the Penguins, but it hardly mattered as the Pens prevailed, 4-2. So while the Flyers did tighten things up a bit and raised the bar physically, it wasn't as if the Pens weren't able to answer. If anything, it couldn't help but remind me of the line plenty of folks got fed about the Lemieux/Jagr-led Pens of the 1990s -- that simply because the Pittsburgh was so potent offensively that they might have a difficult time playing against more physical and tight checking squads.

Well, it wasn't true then, and it isn't true now -- not when you've got a slab of beef like Evgeni Makin who's willing to take your best shot, get off the ice and punish you with his skill (his Game One slapper shorthanded will be on playoff highlight films forever) and then stick his forearm into the earflap of your most skilled player, knocking him into next week (Daniel Briere). Throw in a goal from a player like Maxime Talbot, and well, it's hard not to think that all hope is lost in Philadelphia.

Late last night we passed along the information that long-time Washington goaltender Olie Kolzig wouldn't be back in a Capitals uniform next season. But over at ESPN.com, they might not actually notice that he's gone.

Take a gander at the screen shot I captured a couple of minutes ago. One thing is for sure -- that's not Olie Kolzig. This is Olie Kolzig.

So who is it? After a quick consultation with my colleague, Earl Sleek, we discovered that it's actually Anaheim Ducks defenseman Sean O'Donnell.

A piece of news that had been painfully obvious since the middle of the regular season finally became official tonight, as news has leaked that long-time Washington Capitals goalie Olie Kolzig has played his last game as a member of the Washington Capitals. Kolzig had been with the organization for almost 19 years, ever since the Caps took him with the 19th pick in the first round of the 1989 NHL Entry Draft.

Kolzig broke the news over lunch with Washington Post beat writer Tarik el-Bashir:

"For me, it was disappointing the way it ended," said Kolzig, who led the Capitals to their only Stanley Cup finals appearance in 1998. "It's unfortunate, because they have a good team here now. It's a fantastic team, fantastic group of guys. Not to be a part of that is going to be tough, especially after 17 years and three years of what we went through post-lockout."

After a long pause, he added: "It just doesn't feel right. But at the same time, as an athlete, you have to know when to move on."

Certainly, the team had been sending a number of unambiguous signals to Kolzig for most of the season. The first came in January, when head coach Bruce Boudreau, who had taken over the team just after Thanksgiving, created a defacto rotation between Kolzig and backup Brent Johnson.

Here's some rough news for Philadelphia Flyers fans: Kimmo Timonen, the team's most consistent defender over the course of the season is projected to miss the entire Eastern Conference Finals because of a blood clot in his left ankle. Timonen apparently suffered the injury during Game Four of Philadelphia's series with Montreal, after getting struck by a shot from Canadiens defenseman Andrei Markov.

Missing the Eastern Conference Final isn't even the worst case scenario. Doctors have apparently told Timonen that if the clot dissipates over the next two weeks, there's a small chance he could return to the ice this season, but that there are no guarantees.

If there was one player the Flyers could not afford to lost other than Mike Richards or Martin Biron, it would be Timonen. Besides quarterbacking one of the best power plays in hockey, Timonen has proven to be an underrated defender, punching way above his weight in the first round when along with Brad Richards he was assigned to shadow Washington's Alex Ovechkin. In 12 games this postseason, Timonen had six assists and was +5.

Click here for more NHL playoff previews.

After what seems like forever, the NHL gets back on the ice tonight with the start of the Western Conference Finals tonight in Detroit as the Red Wings host the Dallas Stars. The Eastern Conference Final gets in gear tomorrow night for the battle of Pensylvania as the Penguins host the Flyers in Pittsburgh.

I'm not sure anyone is surprised that Detroit and Pittsburgh made it this far, though seeing Dallas and Philadelphia still alive this late in the game has to count as something of a shocker. As you'll see from our panel, while the discussion was nearly unanimous regarding predictions for both series, there were plenty of folks who were hedging their bets.

As a confirmed tech nerd, I like to count myself lucky to have become an adult in the kind of world that I only dreamed about as a child. In uplifting moments I'm grateful for all the awesome information technology that's transformed the world. Then again, in other small minded moments, I'm grateful for a lot of the mischief this same awesome technology has facilitated.

Case in point: Carey Price, Pension Plan Puppets and Hockey Reference.

All I'll say right now is that Hockey Reference, like its sister sites, allows individuals to sponsor pages with personalized messages. PPP, albeit with some help from its readers, decided it was time to strike in defense of Leafdom, with Montreal goalie Carey Price being the first target. When you get to his page, the sponsorship line now reads:

More Ken Dryden (Liberal leadership candidate) than Ken Dryden (1971 Conn Smythe Winner)

Fresh off its foray into online hijinks, PPP is embarking on a long-term plan to buy up as many pages as possible to annoy fans of rival teams. Childish? Perhaps. But in terms of online marketing, it's sheer brilliance. I can't wait to see who might be next in line. In fact, if I was a less charitable man, I'd think that the folks at Hockey Reference might actually be behind this campaign. But that would just be naked speculation.

Now excuse me for a moment, I need to check out Cam Ward's page.

As an American observer of the NHL, it can be hard sometimes communicating just how important the Toronto Maple Leafs are to the league. What we're talking about is the league's top franchise in Canada's top media market. By all reliable measures, the Leafs are the most valuable franchise in all of hockey.

And given Canada's linguistic schism, for many years, the Leafs were simply the team of all of English Canada, permanently pitted against their greatest rival, the Montreal Canadiens. To this day, you have large pockets of Leafs fans all over Canada, one of the reasons why it's so important for teams out West to expand the intraconference schedule, and get the Leafs to make regular road swings to Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

Which is why the firing of Paul Maurice as Leafs head coach after just two seasons is really big news. Sure, for any other run of the mill team that had missed the playoffs three years in a row and hadn't won a championship in over 40 years, this sort of news is expected pretty regularly. But this is the Toronto Maple Leafs we're talking about, and the position of head coach is arguably one of the most stressful jobs in all of Canada outside of Prime Minister.

If you're feeling a little bleary-eyed this morning, you're excused.

How else could anyone East West of the Rockies who watched the Stars prevail over the Sharks, 2-1 in four overtime periods, feel after enduring five hours and 14 minutes of nerve-wracking action -- a game, that by the time it was over, made you almost completely forget the thrilling OT game that allowed the Penguins to finally dispatch the Rangers late on Sunday afternoon?

I know most hockey fans tend to think of a Game Seven as the ultimate nirvana, but six game series can often be just as epic, and the battle between the Sharks and Stars is going to be remembered in both cities for quite a while.

Yes, it was a six-game series, but five of those games were decided by one goal, and four of those were in overtime. That includes last night's game where the two teams combined for a ridiculous 117 shots, the last coming when Stars captain Brendan Morrow tipped a Stephane Robidas shot past Evgeni Nabokov sometime past 2:14 a.m. U.S. EDT.

Up until that point, the two netminders had been nothing short of brilliant, with both turning in one game-saving stop after another. The most mind-numbing probably came in the first OT period, when Brad Richards sent a wrist rocket at a wide open net, only to see Nabokov snatch it with his glove hand. Later, an overhead replay would show that he had nabbed the puck right above the goal line.

But while Marty Turco and Nabokov were the top two stars of the game, it was on this night that Brendan Morrow demonstrated exactly why the Stars organization stripped Mike Modano of the captaincy and handed it over to him. Morrow was a force all night in every zone, never more than in the closing seconds of regulation when he absolutely leveled Milan Michalek along the right wing boards inside the San Jose zone. Michalek, who had been one of the best Sharks on the ice all night long, needed several minutes just to get off the ice. He wouldn't return.

For the past couple of months now we've been reading rumors of a relationship between Calgary Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf and actress Elisha Cuthbert. Now it seems as if we've got some serious photographic evidence via that paragon of journalistic integrity, Hollywood Tuna:

So it looks like Elisha Cuthbert gets passed around the NHL more than a hockey puck. Here she is with Dion Phaneuf from the Calgary Flames. Now I'm not 100% sure that's him since his face looks like it's taken more beatings than Lindsay Lohan's ...

Yowch, feel the snark! Hollywood is a rough place.

Though the folks at HT don't seem to be completely sure that it's Phaneuf that they've captured walking beside Cuthbert, the hockey braintrust here at FanHouse is happy to confirm their suspicion -- that's certainly Phaneuf in this blowup.

As other have noted, this would mean that Cuthbert has completed something of an NHL dating hat trick, progressing from Rangers bad boy Sean Avery, through Habs defenseman Mike Komisarek and now to Phaneuf, the highest paid of the three.

As far as I'm concerned, we're very happy that Cuthbert has decided to cut a swath through the NHL. In fact, we're just waiting for the moment she gets hitched to a hockey player and starts dishing to the press much like Willa Ford, aka Mrs. Mike Modano.

HT: The Big Lead.

It's hard to believe sometimes that it's only been four years since the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup.

The years since then have been rough on the Lightning and their fans. First off, it was anything but fair for the faithful in Tampa to have to wait a whole extra year before they got to scream their lungs out as the championship banner was raised to the rafters after the lockout.

But it's been all downhill since then, with salary cap considerations forcing painful changes to the lineup as the team fell in the standings. The coup de grace came just a few weeks ago as the team was forced to deal former Conn Smythe winner Brad Richards as the team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2002.

But help is on the way now that the Lightning have won the draft lottery and won the right to pick first in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. But while everyone in the hockey world has known that Steve Stamkos was the presumptive #1 pick for some time now, getting that message out to a non-traditional market like Tampa can be something of a challenge.

The solution? The Lightning have gone viral.