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.

The Detroit Red Wings pushed the Dallas Stars to the brink of elimination last night with a 5-2 win last night in Game 3. The Stars played the Wings fairly close until they gave up a shorthanded goal to Henrik Zetterberg early in the third period. Detroit then put on a passing clinic and allowed Dallas just four shots in the final frame.

Zetterberg's goal was a highlight reel tally as the Red Wing forward took the puck nearly coast-to-coast and beat Brad Richards one-on-one before sending a shot past Marty Turco. The goal made it 4-2 Detroit and was a backbreaker for the Stars. They no longer look like giant killers, as evidenced by the poor backchecking effort by Stephane Robidas and Mike Ribeiro on Zetterberg's goal.

Pavel Datsyuk had a big night for Detroit, notching his first career hat trick as he continues to debunk the myth that he does not show up for the playoffs. Jiri Hudler scored the other Detroit goal. Nicklas Grossman and Brad Richards scored for Dallas.

The other shoe finally dropped on San Jose Sharks head coach Ron Wilson today as the team announced that he had been dismissed and the search for a replacement would begin immediately.

I'm finding myself having a tough time saying much about this decision, as most of the hockey world knew all too well that if Wilson didn't manage to get his team -- seen as one of the most talented in all of hockey -- within striking distance of the Stanley Cup Finals this year, his tenure in the Bay Area would likely be terminated. And so it went.

In a little more than 4.5 seasons in San Jose, Wilson posted the most regular season wins (206) and the best winning percentage (.535) in team history. More importantly, however, was his 28-24 record in four playoff campaigns, never getting closer to the Cup than in 2004, when San Jose dropped the Western Conference Finals in six games to Calgary.

Sharks coach Ron Wilson has failed to get over the hump with the team during his tenure. This season marked the fourth in a row that he had taken the team to the playoffs, with the only missed postseason of his time in San Jose coming during his first season there, 2002-03. His biggest fault has been the inability to make a deep playoff run. Now, there's an awful lot of speculation that this loss, the third straight second round exit for the team, will stand to be Wilson's last behind the bench. The team has been inconsistent with spurts that give us the impression they're headed for the promised land, only to fall flat on their faces. Many times in sports, the players can be at fault. They usually don't take the fall because that comes with the coaches' contract. Sometimes it's the other way around. This might be one of those cases. I'm no expert on the Sharks, but from everything I hear out of San Jose, this kind of behavior from Wilson is said to be the norm as opposed to the exception.

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.

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.

The Dallas Stars didn't want to put a test to that old "third time's a charm" saying.

Much better to just close this deal in San Jose Friday night, and avoid giving the Sharks any more chances to crawl back into the series they had seemingly fallen out of already.

However, things don't always happen the way we plan them.

San Jose pulled off an improbable two-goal rally, then Joe Pavelski scored just over a minute into overtime to give the Sharks a 3-2 win. Dallas' lead in the series is now 3-2, with Game Six Sunday in Dallas.

Dallas had to be happy with the first period. Nothing happened, but the big thing for them was that nothing good happened for San Jose. It kept a usually-boisterous crowd from getting riled up, and it kept San Jose's top line (which has been invisible even-strength for pretty much the entire series) from generating any major chances.

(Still to come: The NHL screws the Stars, a brief rant about the league's inexcusably bad television deal, Guy Carbonneau readies his players for a tall task, and the usual dose of YouTube)

Every Thursday, Earl Sleek will conspire with his pen and scanner to bring you another installment of PuckToons. Hopefully you will find these amusing, relevant, well-drawn, or you're a person who is tolerant towards mediocrity.

Well, thanks to a hard-fought 2-1 win in Dallas, the Sharks have forced a Game Five back in San Jose and will survive at least another day. The Stars and Sharks have been playing a strange series this round; the team that has scored the game's first goal has lost all four games. In that light, maybe rookie Devin Setoguchi knew what he was doing last night when he centered a clearing pass right to the Stars' Jere Lehtinen for an easy snapper past Evgeni Nabokov.

Of course, the Sharks still face a huge uphill battle with the Stars leading 3-1 in the series, so hope for San Jose fans is still faint. Incidentally, this cartoon is a tribute to one of my earliest Battle of California cartoons, back from the 2006 western conference finals, when the Mighty Ducks won a Game Four in Edmonton after dropping the first three games of the series. That series promptly ended in Game Five; can the Sharks avoid the same fate?

Tune in tomorrow and find out.

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.

Guy Carbonneau took an incredible risk Wednesday night.

It was admittedly a risk, even though I felt like it was necessary. Carey Price struggled, and it looked like the confidence was gradually seeping from him. Carbonneau was given almost no choice. Yes, Price was incredible down the stretch after Cristobal Huet was traded to Washington. But he looked to be slipping, and Montreal needed a win Wednesday to keep alive realistic hopes of winning this series.

With that in mind, Carbonneau went with fellow youngster Jaroslav Halak, who was asked to make just two third-period saves in relief of Price in Game Three.

The Canadiens' hopes are dwindling quickly. A power-play goal by Daniel Briere late in the third period nullified a late Montreal comeback, as the badly-outshot Flyers rode the goaltending of Martin Biron to a 4-2 win over Montreal and a 3-1 series lead.

The brilliant WhoWins website reports a probability of over 90 percent that a team up 3-1 in a best-of-seven will win the series. The percentage only falls to 87.5 percent when the team up 3-1 has to play Game Five on the road, as Philadelphia does.

This wasn't Halak's fault, however, as the Canadiens' netminder played well, with his highlight coming as he stopped an early breakaway by Jeff Carter. He was just outplayed by Biron, who is out of his head right now and carrying his team. He was also undone by another lackluster effort from Montreal's forwards. Alex Kovalev was practically a no-show, with Tomas Plekanec, the Kostitsyn brothers, Saku Koivu, Chris Higgins, and others taking turns making bad decisions with the puck.

Philadelphia isn't necessarily as talented as Montreal, but they're proving the age-old thought in hockey that "will beats skill". The Flyers have more will in their top line than Montreal's entire roster has shown so far.

(Still to come: The Stars try to close out Ron Wilson San Jose, Sean Avery's season is over, his teammates should soon follow, and we'll take a random look into the wonderful world of YouTube)

The Dallas Stars lead the San Jose Sharks 3-0 entering Game Four Wednesday night. Despite the fact that everyone knows the history of teams with 3-0 leads in playoff series, there is still some drama. It doesn't surround the possibility of a Sharks comeback or an epic chokejob. Instead there's one question on many minds:

Will the latest playoff disappointment be enough to cost Ron Wilson his job in San Jose?

It's a valid question, really.

Wilson's career in San Jose has been nothing but disappointing. They've had lackluster performances against Calgary, Edmonton, and Detroit in the last three postseasons, and they haven't exactly given a stirring effort against Dallas.

There was heat on the Sharks after last year's exit against a Detroit team that San Jose looked capable of beating rather easily, but instead struggled mightily against. The rumblings continued in the first round, as San Jose let Calgary hang around and hang around before finally winning the series in seven games.

With the end of their season possibly mere hours away, there has been surprisingly little speculation on Wilson's future. Perhaps we're all waiting for the final shoe to actually drop.

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.

From an efficiency standpoint, these playoffs are delivering possibly the quickest second round in NHL history. Three series got a lot less interesting last night when the New York Rangers, the San Jose Sharks, and the Colorado Avalanche all came up short in must-win Game Threes. They will all be hearing lots about the brutal history of a 3-0 series deficit, a hole no NHL team has conquered since the 1975 New York Islanders. Well, maybe the Sharks won't have a chance to hear that much history -- they actually face elimination tonight.

I guess there's a bright side to one-sidedness: with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Dallas Stars, and the Detroit Red Wings all on impressive winning streaks, it's looking to be an interesting third round. That there are three series at 3-0 less than a week into Round Two seems an odd phenomenon, though, as most games seem to have been toss-ups. Collectively, the Penguins, Red Wings, and Stars are 9-0 this round despite scoring the opening goal of the game only three times.

Stars 2, Sharks 1 (OT): In Dallas, defenseman Mattias Norstrom scored at 4:37 of the first overtime to propel the Stars to a comeback win over San Jose. For the fourth game in a row, the Stars surrendered the game's first goal, a shorthanded breakaway by Patrick Marleau. For the fourth game in a row, they fought back for victory, with Sergei Zubov tying the game on a 5-on-3 power play early in the third period. Dallas seems to have a real knack for playing past the forty-minute mark these playoffs: during third periods and overtimes they have collectively outscored their opponents 19-5. The Sharks also managed to extend a franchise streak: for the third year in a row, they lost three consecutive games in Round Two. Ouch.

(After the break, more on the win streaks of the Stars, Penguins, and Red Wings, plus some comeback advice from an unlikely source.)