FanHouse Scottie Upshall

On Thursday, the NHL suspended Flyers forward Daniel Carcillo for his actions in the closing seconds of Pittsburgh's 4-1 win on Wednesday night. It was part of a somewhat embarrassing end to the game, as the Flyers racked up 23 penalty minutes in just 19 seconds.

Carcillo admitted that the official dropping the puck warned him not to try anything.

As we mentioned on Wednesday night, the Philadelphia Flyers turned the final 19 seconds of their 4-1 loss in Pittsburgh into a parade of penalties. One play that was overlooked by the on-ice officiating crew was Daniel Carcillo giving Penguins forward Max Talbot a little shot to the head with what appeared to be his stick or elbow (there's no video floating around the web as of now).

While the officials during the game may have missed it, the suits in the NHL offices certainly did not. As a result, Carcillo is being summoned to the principal's office at 3 PM ET, Thursday, to discuss the play in question.

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We're in the home stretch of the NHL season, and both conference playoff races are heating up as the standings change on a daily basis. The Eastern Conference has seven teams separated by just seven points in the No's 4 through 10 spots, while everybody except Phoenix and Colorado is still competing for a playoff spot in the West.

In hindsight, the Philadelphia Flyers decision to sign Daniel Briere to an eight-year, $52 million contract is looking to be a rather poor investment. That is, if you ignore the original insanity of giving a player that type of contract when he's topped 75 points only once in his career. And that's when he's actually on the ice.

After missing 51 games this season with a groin injury, Briere returned to the Flyers lineup on March 1, and lasted just two full games. In his third game back, Thursday's 5-1 loss to Calgary, the 31-year-old forward left the contest after aggravating the same groin injury, and general manager Paul Holmgren didn't exactly sound optimistic when talking about his status.

Flames 5, Flyers 1: The Calgary Flames were the big winners during the NHL's trade deadline, picking up Olli Jokinen from the Phoenix Coyotes and Jordan Leopold from the Colorado Avalanche. It didn't take the two newcomers long to make an impact for the Flames, as they each scored in the first period of Calgary's 5-1 win in Philadelphia.

Jokinen scored a pair of goals in the first period, while Leopold added his seventh of the season to help the Flames race out to a 4-0 lead.

In an effort to improve their fighting ability and all out toughness, the Philadelphia Flyers have acquired Daniel Carcillo from the Phoenix Coyotes for Scottie Upshall and a second-round draft pick. This seems like quite a bit to give up for a goon -- and not a particularly bright one on the ice, might I add.

Upshall has been a disappointment since being selected sixth overall by the Nashville Predators in 2002, scoring more than 10 goals in a season one time.

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Brian Burke's acquisition of tough-guy Brad May helped add to some of the intensity and entertainment value in Thursday's Montreal-Toronto game, as the two teams beat the snot out of one other physically, while the Canadiens dominated on the scoreboard, pulling out a 6-2 win. The victory for Montreal is its third in a row, and eighth in its past 10 games.

We've already talked about the penalties and wrestling matches between Mikhail Grabovski and a linesman, so let's talk about the game itself. The Canadiens jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first period, thanks to goals from Sergei Kostitsyn, Maxim Lapierre and Guillaume Latendresse. Jaroslav Halak, making his fourth straight start in goal for Montreal, turned aside 30 shots to pick up his eighth win of the season.

Bruins 6, Senators 4: Boston snapped a brief two-game losing skid on Thursday night with a 6-4 win over Ottawa. The Bruins let a 3-1 lead slip away late in the second period, and then scored three consecutive goals of their own in the third, as Ottawa goalie Martin Gerber had a rather forgettable start in goal, stopping only 16 of 21 shots. Marc Savard scored what proved to be the game-winning goal, while also adding two assists.

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.

After seeing the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs speed by us at Mach 2, it seems as if we're in for something of a re-run in the Conference Finals, as the higher seeds both held serve on home ice to take a 2-0 series lead -- something our roundtable participants seemed to think was sure to be something of a death sentence for the lower seeds.

After Game One in Pittsburgh, Flyers head coach John Stevens said he wanted his team to cut down on the turnovers and bring a more physical game to the ice for Game Two against the Penguins, but it hardly mattered as the Pens prevailed, 4-2. So while the Flyers did tighten things up a bit and raised the bar physically, it wasn't as if the Pens weren't able to answer. If anything, it couldn't help but remind me of the line plenty of folks got fed about the Lemieux/Jagr-led Pens of the 1990s -- that simply because the Pittsburgh was so potent offensively that they might have a difficult time playing against more physical and tight checking squads.

Well, it wasn't true then, and it isn't true now -- not when you've got a slab of beef like Evgeni Makin who's willing to take your best shot, get off the ice and punish you with his skill (his Game One slapper shorthanded will be on playoff highlight films forever) and then stick his forearm into the earflap of your most skilled player, knocking him into next week (Daniel Briere). Throw in a goal from a player like Maxime Talbot, and well, it's hard not to think that all hope is lost in Philadelphia.

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Holy cow. The Penguins and the Flyers are playing in the Eastern Conference Finals. If you live or have lived in Pennsylvania, you understand what a big deal this is. The players from these teams don't like each other. The fans of these two teams despise each other. There's a ton of civic pride on the line here. This is everything fans look for in a playoff series.

But to make this series all about the rivalry doesn't give these two teams the respect they deserve. The Penguins have played great hockey since January. The Flyers have been on fire since around the trade deadline, when everyone had left them for dead. They both disposed of their very talented second round opponents with surprising ease. There's really no doubt left that these two teams are the best teams in the Eastern Conference right now. The rivalry only heightens the intensity.