Jiri Hudler is back in the Detroit lineup at the expense of Kyle Calder, who was a healthy scratch. 

Sid the Kid played the final 11 regular season games, as well as all five playoff contests, with a broken foot. He blocked a shot on March 16 against the Habs and had been playing in discomfort ever since. Just imagine what he'll do next year with two good feet! 

Jussi Jokinen is doubtful for Game 6 tonight. He has an upper body injury.

Vancouver's Big Three have been shut down since Game 1. Naslund and the Sedin twins have the big goose egg in the last four games.

Loui Eriksson played in Game 5 after not having played since Game 1. He impressed coach Tippett and will likely be back in the lineup for Game 6.

Jordin Tootoo did not play last night because he had a sore leg.

Chris Kunitz is pointless in these playoffs.

It turns out that Francois Beauchemin has a small fracture in two places in his jaw. He played 28 minutes last game with a mask. 

San Jose eliminated Nashville and Buffalo eliminated the Islanders. I am now 2-3. Interestingly enough, the DobberHockey panel "consensus" picks (i.e. our collective brains) are 4-1 so far, losing only the Ott-Pit series which our average pick was Pittsburgh to win in seven.

San Jose heads into the second round with Joe Thornton and Jonathon Cheechoo having a combined zero goals. Their opponent is in a lot of trouble, because you have wonder how well the Sharks will do when these guys finally start scoring.

I'll repeat myself from yesterday – the Preds should have started Mason. Vokoun did wonderful, but Mason could have stolen that game – it was that close.

Another mistake Barry Trotz made – not trusting his youngsters. i.e. Alexander Radulov. What's this crap about playing your second-best offensive player (in my books) under 12 minutes???? If Trotz was coaching Team Dobber, he would have been fired by the end of the second period. He had three other players with less than 10 minutes of ice time while San Jose rolled four lines out nice, neat, and fresh. 

Ales Kotalik got his first point of the postseason last night.

Tampa Bay only allowed 13 shots, yet Martin Brodeur single-handedly beat them. Now that Marty has shown up, the Lightning are in a lot of trouble.

Mark Bell was a scratch again last night. I don't think we'll see much of him going forward this spring. 

It is looking like Buf vs. NYR and NJ vs. Ott. So the Sabres will play the Sens in the semi-final. I was in two playoff pools this year: one had BUF vs. PIT (that was my own DobberHockey pool). The other, the one where I can win money, had BUF vs. OTT in the semis. Yes, I like hedging my bets.