FanHouse Matt Niskanen

Just because Chris Pronger has departed doesn't mean the Anaheim Ducks are no longer capable of dirty hockey.

In a move that would have likely made Pronger proud, Anaheim forward Evgeni Artyukhin took out Dallas defenseman Matt Niskanen with a slew-foot during the Stars' 4-2 win Wednesday night. While the on-ice officials didn't notice the play, the NHL did. Artyukhin was suspended three games for the hit.

The success of coaches in professional sports is difficult to predict. Bill Belichick was an abject failure in Cleveland, but is now considered one of the top coaches in all of sports. Flip Saunders did pretty well for himself in Minnesota, but could not bring a championship to Detroit. In the NHL, Claude Julien and Paul Maurice are two examples of coaches who got the proverbial walking papers and found great success at later jobs.

Since coaches are essentially hired to be fired, veteran NHL coach Marc Crawford has been fired. He's actually about to begin his fourth stop in the league, as the Dallas Stars hired him Thursday to replace the fired Dave Tippett.

There are certainly at least two really good teams in the NHL's Western Conference. Defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit and fast-starting San Jose appear in the clear to duke it out for the right to play for the Stanley Cup later this year.

Of course, we know that anything can happen in a best-of-seven series. In addition, we still have half a season left to play. What we don't know is which team in this conference is set up to challenge either the Red Wings or Sharks. They've beaten - at least once - pretty much everyone who has stood in their way, including each other.

While the top of the conference appears to virtually locked in place at this point, there are still serious battles to be fought, especially for the last four positions in the West. Currently, eight teams are separated by just six points. St. Louis, the last-place team in the West, is just nine points out of eighth.

Click here for more NHL playoff previews.

After what seems like forever, the NHL gets back on the ice tonight with the start of the Western Conference Finals tonight in Detroit as the Red Wings host the Dallas Stars. The Eastern Conference Final gets in gear tomorrow night for the battle of Pensylvania as the Penguins host the Flyers in Pittsburgh.

I'm not sure anyone is surprised that Detroit and Pittsburgh made it this far, though seeing Dallas and Philadelphia still alive this late in the game has to count as something of a shocker. As you'll see from our panel, while the discussion was nearly unanimous regarding predictions for both series, there were plenty of folks who were hedging their bets.

Dallas Stars goaltender Marty Turco took some time away from his valuable puck-handling practice to play a nice little surprise on defenseman Matt Niskanen.

While most NHL players can afford to have the finest in luxury automobiles, some players, like Niskanen, prefer to drive around with a more 'budget' model.

See what happens when Turco, unbeknownst to Matty, decides to trick out his team-mate's 2001 Pontiac Sunfire (with manual windows!!)

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.

Can we possibly get through a weekend without seeing another member of the Philadelphia Flyers get rung up for a game misconduct and take his place in line for yet another disciplinary hearing with Colin Campbell? I guess the answer is no, as Philadelphia's Riley Cote took the opportunity to step up on Saturday night and go head hunting. His target: Matt Niskanen of the Dallas Stars.

Thankfully, Niskanen wasn't injured, but as you'll see in the video below, it wasn't for lack of trying.



It's clear that something is happening in Philadelphia, but the league, which has responded with individual suspensions of varying severity to four other members of the team, seems at a loss to know what to do about it.

The question that I put to my colleagues at FanHouse was one that was originally raised by Michael Farber over at Sports Illustrated: Is it time to start holding organizations accountable as a whole for the behavior of their players on the ice? What sort of punishment is appropriate and how high should it go?

A transcript of our roundtable discussion, which took place before Cote's hit on Niskanen, follows.