FanHouse Shane OBrien

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.

Wild 3, Oilers 0: Bruce Ciskie already posted on the details of Marian Gaborik's triumphant return to the Minnesota lineup in its 3-0 win over Edmonton, and to continue the coverage here's some video of the Wild's third goal. Let's just give an assist to the Oilers on this one:



That's just an unfortunate -- and depending on your rooting interests, hilarious -- bounce for the Oilers. Amazingly, it wasn't the only goal a team scored on itself during this weekend's action.

After seven straight losses, and on the heels of blowing another two-goal home lead Wednesday against Nashville, the Vancouver Canucks held a spirited workout Thursday.

By "spirited", I mean "we nearly had a fight". These types of things are going to happen when you have two points in seven games, and you're on the verge of taking yourself out of serious contention in the Western Conference. The Canucks are out of the top eight for the moment, facing the always-tough Minnesota Wild on Saturday, and with every game they don't win, they're putting more pressure on coach Alain Vigneault.

When Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Barry Melrose benched defenseman Shane O'Brien for Sunday's game against the New York Rangers in Prague, Tampa Bay Online's Damian Cristodero wondered out loud whether or not the benching wasn't so much for poor play as it was to make sure O'Brien wasn't injured while the team was trying to deal him.

Just 24 hours later, Cristodero was proven right when the Lightning shipped O'Brien and and right wing Michel Ouellet to Vancouver for defenseman Lukas Krajicek and minor league winger Juraj Simek. Needless to say, the move provoked a lot of headscratching in our FanHouse email group. After all, if Tampa Bay's blue line is soft now, how in the world will the addition of Kajicek -- and the rumored interest in free agent defenseman Bryan Berard -- make things better?