The Fifth Liners

It's been a busy week, what with the Champion's League final, the Go Karts in Monaco and Daft Punk releasing their new album. Anyway back to hockey. Things are sewn up in the east now, the Penguins will beat  play Boston in the Eastern Conference Final. In the west however, it's a different story with Detroit and LA still fighting it out, touch wood Detroit will make the most of the home ice advantage and win the series. San Jose on the other hand are the little train that never gave up. Despite the Kings dominating game five and shutting out the Sharks, Coach Todd McLellan must have slipped some kangaroo juice into his players' Gatorade cos last night they bounced right back*. I've heard of rushing the goal, but the Kings' initial strategy seemed to be 'rush the penalty box'. Kyle Clifford, Mike Richards and Anze Kopitar all made visits to the box in the first five minutes of play. Presumably Darryl Sutter will rethink this strategy as it al...

The Detroit Red Wings are determined not to miss out on that last playoff place in the Western Conference. Last night the LA Kings were welcomed to the Joe Louis Arena (minus Dustin Brown). The Kings opened the scoring in the second period Kyle Clifford wristed past Jimmy Howard . Pavel Datsyuk responded with a backhanded effort five minutes later to restore parity. In the third period, Jordin Tootoo gave the Wings the edge and Valtteri Filppula sealed both points. The win puts the Wings a point ahead of Columbus and edges the team back into the playoff places. Columbus, Dallas and Detroit are all still in the competition to see who'll get knocked out by Chicago in the playoffs. Full story  here.