FanHouse Adam Burish

With most eyes on the splendid series going on in Pittsburgh, the Canucks and Blackhawks waged a stirring Game 6 of their own, each team answering back repeatedly until Chicago's young stars put the game away - and put the Blackhawks into the conference finals for the first time since 1995.

After essentially a decade of futility, once-great Chicago is poised for a another lengthy run of success with players such as 20-year-old Patrick Kane, who had a hat trick in Monday night's 7-5 victory over Vancouver, and 21-year-old captain Jonathan Toews. Toews ended a nine-game goal-less streak by putting two in - including the go-ahead score, an attempted pass that deflected in on a power play with 6:11 left.

Just one win away from a series clinch, Chicago knew they needed a great effort from their goaltender to advance. It was the first chance for this young team to play in an elimination game, and they knew there would be a lot of heat on Nikolai Khabibulin. The homestanding Flames could be counted on to bring everything they had to try to force a Game 7.

For Khabibulin, it was a rather inauspicious start to a game day. Things ended well, however, as the Blackhawks advanced to the second round with a 4-1 win over Calgary.

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On Monday night, the Calgary Flames defeated the Chicago Blackhawks for the first time this season, cutting the deficit in their Western Conference Quarterfinal in half. Late in the third period -- with 13 seconds remaining, to be exact -- Chicago's Adam Burish decided to break his stick in half across Rene Bourque's face.

It took seven tries to do it and now the Calgary Flames can say that they have beaten the Chicago Blackhawks during the 2008-09 season. Heading into Game Three tonight, the Flames had lost all six meetings with the Hawks this year. In front of a raucous "C of Red" at home in Calgary, the Flames emphatically ended that streak against a Patrick Kane-less Hawks team.

During each of the first two games of this series, the Flames blew leads in Chicago. That wouldn't be the case tonight as they narrowed the Hawks lead in the series to one game with a 4-2 win. It seemed like the young team from the Windy City may have been a bit nervous about their first road playoff game since 2002.

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The Penguins needed a game like this, and it's quite a way to open up the second half of the season as they scored five third period goals on their way to a 6-2 win over the New York Rangers. Marc-Andre Fleury kept the Penguins in it early, turning aside 32-of-34 shots, while the offense took over in the third period, peppering Henrik Lundqvist with 16 shots.

In a little more than a season in the NHL, Chicago Blackhawks winger Adam Burish has piled up a total of 15 fights, according to the folks at Hockeyfights.com. But earlier this week, Burish got to see how the other side lives when he worked as a security guard on the Jerry Springer Show.

So what do security guards do on Jerry Springer? Well, they break up fights. You have to love the irony here. Burish told the story over at his blog, which is hosted at the Chicago Sun-Times: