FanHouse Joe Pavelski

It's been a couple days since Dany Heatley was shipped from Ottawa to San Jose, so we've all had a little time to take a step back and look a the trade. Today, some of the best and brightest in the two blogospheres involved have taken the time to share their views on the trade with us. I have an odd feeling that the Senators' bloggers feel a lot of relief now that the trade has been mad but, to find out, follow me through the jump.

Hostilities began when the puck dropped, and in a penalty-happy Game 6, the Ducks took better advantage of the man advantage and knocked the top-seeded Sharks out of the playoffs.

San Jose, which finished with a league-best 117 points, fell 4-1 at the Honda Center and became the fourth President's Trophy winning team to fall in the first round. Perennial disappointments who have yet to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals, the Sharks do not have a good relationship with sixth games in playoff series, and are now 2-13 overall and 1-7 on the road in those games.

---

---

On February 23, 2009, the people that brought us the statistical analysis websites Baseball Prospectus and Basketball Prospectus, launched their hockey counterpart, Puck Prospectus.

While hockey is somewhat behind the times when it comes to this sort analysis, it's not completely unheard of at this point. Gabriel Desjardins, for example, has been running the fascinating analytical website Behind The Net for a couple of years now, while there is also the little-known Corsi Numbers.

After the jump, we had an opportunity to ask Will Carroll, one of the leading people at Puck Prospectus, a few questions on what the site can provide hockey fans.

It's official: Sidney Crosby is on a roll. The Penguins captain netted his second career hat trick on Saturday night, helping lead Pittsburgh to a 4-1 win over New Jersey. Crosby now has 13 goals on the season, and six in his past three games.

Crosby opened the scoring just over a minute into the game, when he spun around and slipped a blind backhander behind New Jersey goalie Scott Clemmensen. He also added goals in the second and third periods, and picked up an assist on Petr Sykora's power play goal.

Crosby is now second in the NHL's scoring race with 34 points, just five behind teammate Evgeni Malkin, who picked up two assists in the win. The duo has been white-hot the past three games, combining for 17 points and dominating just about every time they've been on the ice. Right now, these two guys are from another planet.

Mike Rupp scored New Jersey's only goal of the game early in the third period, and nearly found himself in a fight with Crosby. Instead of actually dropping the gloves and taking a few swings on one another, the two just sort of wrestled along the boards and picked up coincidental minors for roughing.

There was a time when Dallas Stars goalie Marty Turco was among the best in the National Hockey League. It appears as if those days are over, at least for this year, as the 33-year old netminder was lifted for the third time this season, after giving up five goals on just 19 shots Friday night. In the end, the Stars fell to the runaway locomotive that is the San Jose Sharks, 6-2.

Honestly, San Jose may never lose again, as it now has a league-best 39 points.

Turco's save percentage is just about ready to drop below the .870 mark, which is pretty hard to comprehend for an NHL goalie, and Stars head coach Dave Tippett sort of agrees, saying "our goaltender has to be better." Indeed he does. And while he wouldn't announce anything after the game, Tippett left open the possibility that Tobias Stephan could start Sunday's game against Edmonton. I guess the question is: could he really be any worse?

San Jose received a pair of goals from Dan Boyle, while Joe Pavelski, Milan Michalek and Rob Blake slipped shots behind the struggling Turco before he was lifted following the second period.

Evgeni Nabokov, making his second start since returning to the lineup, turned aside 25 of 27 shots in the win.

It's safe to say that when the Dallas Stars acquired Brad Richards in a multi-player deal at the trade deadline that expectations were high as the former Conn Smythe Trophy winner came to Dallas. And for one night at least, Richards was the toast of the town.

I'm talking about February 28th, when Richards tallied five assists in a 7-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. But as great a start as that might have been, Richards quickly disappeared the rest of the way. In the next 11 games he would score just twice and add four assists while recording a -3 before being shut down for the final three games of the regular season due to what was described as "general soreness" and then the flu. Not exactly the sort of payoff you'd expect from a player who became the highest paid on the team the very moment he joined the roster.

In the first round of the playoffs, Richards tallied a respectable goal and four assists, but his real coming out party didn't come until Sunday night when he piled up almost as many points in just one period of Game Two of his team's series with the San Jose Sharks. The most important point came early in the third period with Dallas down 2-1.

San Jose's Joe Pavelski seemed to lose an edge as he took a breakout pass while trying to skate out of the San Jose zone. Richards, skating just outside the San Jose blue line, pounced as Pavelski fell to the ice and collected the loose puck before unleashing a wrist shot that beat Evgeni Nabakov stick side to tie the game, 2-2. From there, the Stars kept pressing the attack, as Richards assisted on all three remaining Dallas goals in the 5-2 win.

With the win, the Sharks have a 2-0 series lead over San Jose, and have now won a pair of games on enemy ice to start both of their playoff series so far. And all of a sudden, a team that lost 11 of its last 14 regular season games looks like a favorite to advance to the Western Conference Finals.