Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin have already claimed a Hart Trophy in their young NHL careers as league MVP, while the only member of the new big three to not take home the hardware is Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin. Is this the year? Or will Ovechkin claim his second in a row?
The Calgary Flames face elimination Monday night at home. They'll play the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 6 of their Western Conference quarterfinal series.
Pavel Datsyuk has owned the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy the past three seasons, and he's going to have an opportunity to claim another one as the Red Wings' star is, once again, one of the top vote-getters in 2009. Joining Datsyuk in the top three are New Jersey's Zach Parise and Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis.
The 30-year-old center matched a career-high with 97 points this season, fourth best in the NHL, while also setting a new personal-best with 32 goals. One of the best -- and most underrated -- players in the NHL, Datsyuk is the total package as a player, and is also one of the all-time great draft day steals, going in the sixth-round of the 1998 draft, 187th overall.
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.
As the third overall pick in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, Jonathan Toews has always been blessed with exceptional talent. He's excelled on the ice during his first two years in Chicago, he's currently the youngest captain in the NHL, and now that he's getting an opportunity to shine in the playoff spotlight, he's certainly not disappointing.
Toews scored a pair of goals in the second period on Saturday night, as the Blackhawks erased an early deficit to pull out a 3-2 win in game 2 of their Western Conference quarterfinal. Chicago now has a 2-0 lead in the series as it heads to Calgary on Monday.
Exactly 1,230 regular season games have been played. We're down to the best eight teams in each conference. The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Wednesday night with four series lid-lifters.
The Western Conference is home to the league's best team (San Jose), the defending champion (Detroit), and the two most intriguing Cinderella stories in the league (St. Louis and Columbus). Can Cinderella put off the stroke of midnight, or will an established power advance their way to the Finals?
With his 35th goal of the season in Pittsburgh's 3-1 win over Montreal on Saturday night, Evgeni Malkin secured the first Art Ross Trophy of his career as the league's leading scorer. Malkin finishes the regular season with 113 points, beating out Washington's Alex Ovechkin, who finished with 110.
Ovechkin will take home his second straight Maurice Rocket Richard award as the league's leading goal-scorer, tallying 56 for the season.
Every season since 2000-2001, Jarome Iginla has led the Calgary Flames in goals. In many of those seasons, it hasn't really been close. While he's a wonderful player and all, this isn't necessarily a good thing. You could argue that Calgary's lack of balance has played a role in their inability to advance past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs more than once in Iginla's career.
With that in mind, general manager Darryl Sutter found Iginla some help last summer. He acquired Mike Cammalleri from the Los Angeles Kings, hoping he had found someone who could take all the heat off Iginla and Daymond Langkow.
For the most part, Jason Blake has been a rather large free agent bust for the Toronto Maple Leafs. After signing a five-year, $20 million deal with Toronto prior to the 2007 season, Blake scored only 15 goals for Toronto a season ago, and has been a healthy scratch on more than one occasion this season. On Tuesday, Blake scored the game-winning goal in a shootout in rather spectacular fashion -- shown above -- giving the Leafs a 3-2 win over New Jersey.
It's Toronto's third win a row, while the Devils drop their second straight.
After Mike Rupp gave New Jersey a 1-0 lead in the first period, the Leafs received a pair of second period goals from Jeremy Williams and Nik Antropov, before Zach Parise netted a power play goal with 20 seconds to play in the period, tying the game.
Vesa Toskala stopped 25 shots in the win, while also turning aside 3-of-4 shots in the shootout. Scott Clemmensen started for New Jersey, surrendering two goals in regulation on 27 shots.
Ladd also picked up three assists in the win, earning himself No. 1 start honors with his four point effort. The four points, by the way, were a career-best for the 22-year old forward.
With the Coyotes trailing 7-0 in the second period, Envir Lisin at least got them on the board with his fifth goal of the season, which was the shot they could sneak behind Chicago goalie Cristobal Huet, who stopped 20 shots in the win.
Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin have already claimed a Hart Trophy in their young NHL careers as league MVP, while the only member of the new big three to not take home the hardware is Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin. Is this the year? Or will Ovechkin claim his second in a row?
The Calgary Flames face elimination Monday night at home. They'll play the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 6 of their Western Conference quarterfinal series. 
Pavel Datsyuk has owned the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy the past three seasons, and he's going to have an opportunity to claim another one as the Red Wings' star is, once again, one of the top vote-getters in 2009. Joining Datsyuk in the top three are New Jersey's Zach Parise and Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis. 
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.
Every season since 2000-2001, Jarome Iginla has led the Calgary Flames in goals. In many of those seasons, it hasn't really been close. While he's a wonderful player and all, this isn't necessarily a good thing. You could argue that Calgary's lack of balance has played a role in their inability to advance past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs more than once in Iginla's career. 
Not one of Ilya Bryzgalov's best performances for Phoenix, as the Chicago Blackhawks lit him up seven times on 28 shots, as the Coyotes lost a laugher, 7-1. Chicago received a pair of goals from Ben Eager, while also getting tallies from Dave Bolland, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, Dustin Byfuglien, and Andrew ladd in the win. 
