When I was reading the Bill Simmons column earlier this week about his casual bandwagon hockey habit, I couldn't help but pick up on the fact that he waved poetic over the fact that you could hop onto YouTube anytime to watch the classic battles between Clark Gillies of the New York Islanders and Terry O'Reilly of the Boston Bruins that took place during a Stanley Cup Playoffs Quarterfinal series between their two teams in 1980.

And indeed, you can find those fights -- all four of them in fact. But after I did some more poking around, I found a battle that had some historical significance -- a piece of video that would seem to have recorded the first NHL fight between O'Reilly and the man who for a time would become known as the most brutal in hockey, Dave Schultz of the Philadelphia Flyers. Click here (embedding disabled by user) to watch it.

After watching the clip, I'd have to conclude this is a Boston-area telecast, probably from WSBK-TV, the station that carried the Bruins back in those days before sports cable giants like NESN, YES and MASN strode the earth. Given that the play-by-play team say that this was the first time the two fought in the NHL, though they had tangled previously in the AHL, I'm guessing the clip is vintage 1972-73.

The previous season, where the two supposedly fought earlier, O'Reilly compiled a modest 134 penalty minutes playing for the Boston Braves. Meanwhile, Schultz piled up 392 PIMs for the Richmond Robins. I think it's safe to say he knew by then what he needed to do to get to the NHL.

Oddly enough, even though I was raised on Long Island, O'Reilly was the one player who I admired the most. Watching and playing the game as a young kid, there just didn't seem to be anybody else on the ice who played with more hustle, desire and bravery than O'Reilly did. That's probably why his name hangs from the rafters beside a number of men who either won Stanley Cups or have a bust in the Hockey Hall of Fame -- honors O'Reilly never earned himself.

Instead, he just stepped onto NHL ice 891 times in his career and honored the game every time. Thanks, Terry.

Ahead of yesterday's Game Seven between Boston and Montreal, Boston ex-pat Bill Simmons decided to hand his column over to a topic he rarely, if ever, discusses: The NHL. In this case, he devoted plenty of pixels to his recent re-infatuation with the Boston Bruins.

I know I bash the WWL with the best of them these days, but seeing Simmons write about the league is nothing but good news. Like it or not, the NHL can use all the friends it can get over at ESPN, even if Simmons mostly writes about the NHL like it was an old girlfriend who was enduring some hard times.

In any case, Simmons made more than a few points that any NHL diehard could agree with, including how expansion has watered down the sort of rivalries that were once the lifeblood of the league and how he's developed a genuine man crush on Milan Lucic. But what really caught my attention was this line:

The NHL has evolved into a sport with all die-hard fans and no casual ones. They need to get the casual ones back. They need to bring back people like me.

While plenty of fans of the league might disagree with Simmons -- including ESPN's own John Buccigross, who often writes that the NHL ought to be happy with its niche status -- at least you can see his point. But what struck me about it was this: After reading a little further, it was hard to conclude that Simmons was a casual fan at all.

It's been all of 15 years since the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup, and if you've seen any of the footage coming out of that city since last night's 5-0 win over Boston in Game Seven of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal playoff series, you could be forgiven for hoping that the Canadiens never win another Stanley Cup.



I know it's unfair to ask that an entire city bear the blame for the actions of just a small handful of yahoos, but after seeing a couple of hundred local residents riot on St. Catherine's Street, loot a couple of stores and torch a few police cruisers, one begins to wonder just might what happen if the Canadiens fight their way to the Finals and bring the Cup back to Montreal.

After the Rangers and Penguins advanced to the second round of the playoffs, all talk about future matchups centered on the Flyers/Caps series. "If the Flyers win ...." or "If the Caps win ..." Of course, all talk came with one caveat: "Unless the Bruins win." You can toss that caveat out the window now, because the Habs did their job and blew the Bruins out of the water tonight with a 5-0 win, dominating the Bruins the way most people expected them to the entire series.

The key to this one was most certainly Carey Price, he of the 8 third period goals allowed in Games 5 and 6. It goes without saying that that kind of play is unacceptable in the playoffs and he shored things up tonight, turning away all 25 shots the Bruins threw at him. He was huge in the first period when Montreal ran out to a 1-0 lead, but Boston outplayed and outshot the Habs.

From that point on it was all Canadiens, with Mark Streit adding one goal and the Kostitsyns adding three more (Andrei with two, Sergei with one). After disappearing behind Price's shaky goal tending for two games, the high-flying Habs that took the top seed in the East were back on the ice tonight. They'll sit back tomorrow night with the Rangers and Penguins, watching the Flyers and Capitals settle both their series and the second round playoff matchups.

No game seven of any series, even the first round, should need any extra hype surrounding it, but the Bruins/Canadiens game tonight has some hugely historic possibilities, and so I'm here to fan the flames a bit. Besides the obvious implications (8 vs. 1 upset, first 3-1 comeback in Bruins history, etc.) this game is just incredibly improbable for a ton of reasons.

Starting at the top, there's the oft-cited dominance of B's by the Habs during the past two seasons. They went 0-8 against Montreal in 07/08 and they were only 3-5 against them in 06/07. That means that just getting to Game 7 means the Bruins have beaten the Canadiens as much in the past two weeks as they did in the two prior seasons. That doesn't even consider that to win Games 5 and 6, they scored four goals in both third periods and used their four goals in Game 6 to answer two goals by the Habs in one of the craziest periods of playoff hockey in recent memory.

So who ya got in this one? I didn't give the B's much of a chance before this series, but anyone who did is either a Bruins' fan or lying. They're too young, the Canadiens are more skilled, the game is in Montreal, etc. There are a hundred reasons to pick the Habs in this one. Still, it's hard to just ignore that awesome third period by the Bruins in game six. They answered everything the Canadiens threw at them and pulled out a win, even in the face of a hugely deflating goal by Montreal inside the five minute mark. There's not much empirical reason to pick Boston, but it's hard to just dismiss them tonight.

It's time to enter the ring, the steel cage, the fire pit of doom -- whatever you want to call it -- or maybe a simple hockey rink could work, too. No matter how you want to look at it, this is do or die weekend for the 12 teams that are still playing hockey in the conference quarterfinals. Six of them have a chance to close out their series and, as you might expect, six are fighting for their playoff lives. The Rangers and Penguins, like me and you, are watching this weekend comfortably from their couches. Those two teams are probably hoping that their future opponents, who ever they may be, are getting the tar beat out of them. Softened up, if you will. Here's a quick look around the league at what is at stake this weekend around the league.

The fate of the entire Western Conference. Right now, the playoff picture out west is very cloudy. No series has concluded yet and as of right now they all have a good shot at going all the way to a seventh game. Each series is currently led by one team by a 3-2 margin. In two of the matchups the lower seed and Game Six road team has a chance to close things out in the sixth meeting. Of course, a bad bounce either way could change things around completely and send the series to a seventh game. Now, imagine all four series end up going the distance ... How awesome would that be??

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.

When you take a look back at the FanHouse Western Conference Roundtable, there was a lot of disagreement. However, there was at least one point of unanimity, and that was the contention that the Dallas Stars weren't long for this world, especially as they were set to face the defending Stanley Cup Champs, the Anaheim Ducks, in the first round of the playoffs.

For us, the calculus was pretty simple: Dallas had lost 10 of its last 14 games and was going against an Anaheim team that seemed designed specifically for playoff success. Toss in an injury to superstar defenseman Sergei Zubov, and it seemed as if the Ducks were set to steamroll the Stars out of the playoffs.

Which I guess is why they play the games. With a 3-1 home win in Game Four last night, Dallas took a rather commanding 3-1 series lead over the Ducks. Anaheim threw 28 shots on Marty Turco last night, but didn't get a puck past him until only 7.6 seconds were left in the game. Heck, even Teemu Selanne ran Turco in the third period, but it wasn't enough.

Last night, the Ottawa Senators became the first team to be eliminated from the playoffs after being dispatched 3-1 by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Tonight, there is only one team on the slate with a chance to join the Sens on the golf course, but for two others their seasons could effectively be over.

The Boston Bruins are the only team that can be officially eliminated tonight, down 3-1 in their best of seven series against the Montreal Canadiens. To further their suffering, the game is taking place in Montreal, a city that is sure hockey mad right now. The Habs have not won a playoff series since prior to the lockout and you can bet their fanbase is going to be hungry for a victory tonight. According to WhoWins.com, the team leading a quarterfinals matchup in the NHL has advanced 95.3% of the time, so things aren't looking good for the Bruins. That being said, Boston is not out of hope just yet. The team up 3-1 has won Game Five 64.1% of the time, which isn't an overwhelming statistic. Things don't look good, but the Bs (who have put up a heck of a fight) aren't cooked yet.

Two other teams are in danger tonight. They're not facing elimination like Boston, but they might as well be. Both the Washington Capitals (not the Crapitals, as Mike Milbury would say) and the Anaheim Ducks are down 2-1 heading into Game Four of their first round series. Both teams are on the road and would be put in a precarious position if they were to lose and go down 3-1, even though they would be going back home for Game Five. You might as well call this moving day for these teams, even though this isn't golf. They better get moving otherwise they'll be sitting on the sidelines with the Senators soon enough.

Well, I don't really know if they are offended. But they might be. Consider the following quote from Montreal's Tomas Plekanec reflecting on his team's loss to the Bruins in Game Three:

A puff of refreshing honesty came out of Tomas Plekanec's mouth when discussing his play so far in the postseason.

"The last two games, I played like a little girl out there," the Montreal Canadiens centre said yesterday, the day after his team suffered a 2-1 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins. "I didn't respond the way I liked."

I, for one, salute Mr. Plekanec for the honesty. While he may have offended little girls, it's certainly nice to see a player not give a bland, ordinary response. All too often we hear typical responses like these:

"We'll just have to play better next time."

"Tonight we didn't do what we needed to do to get the job done."

Those two lines alone make me want to put a pillow over my face and scream like demons are trying to escape from my body. They're so atrocious and over used it's disgusting. Of course, I'm not endorsing the defamation of little girls. That's not something anyone should endorse and little girls should, in fact, be encouraged to play hockey. I bet some of them can play better than Plekanec has during the series (two assists, -2). But nonetheless, thank you to Plekanec for stepping away from the norm and giving me something to write about.

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.

Just a few minutes into Game Three of the series between the Sharks and the Flames in Calgary it appeared that the hockey world had begun to spin properly on its axis once again. Shifting to Calgary after an unexpected split in San Jose, the Sharks potted three quick first period goals against the Flames to reassert their dominance over the seventh seed in the West.

But the Flames and head coach Mike Keenan had other plans. Busting out the whooping stick, Keenan and the Flames decided to target Sharks captain Patrick Marleau for a physical beating. First, it was Dion Phaneuf who rode him into the boards opening up a cut above his right eye. Then, later in the period, it was Cory Sarich who lined up Marleau as he was firing a breakout pass from the Sharks defensive zone. One power play later, the Flames had cut the deficit to 3-1 before roaring all the way back for a 4-3 victory.

Now the Sharks have their backs against the wall and Ron Wilson's toilet seat doesn't look so funny. Flames lead series, 2-1.