Playoffs, Night Three: Not a Good Track Record.

Well, at least the Devils won.

That's the consolation I have to give myself, after watching four straight hockey games and getting updates on another one. And go figure- the one I don't watch is the one in which the team I'm rooting for wins. Up until 2:00 a.m. for all of that?! But hey, at least there were some great games on. And I will say this much- for all my complaints about Versus showing NHL games, I was in hockey heaven last night with their continuous coverage of the playoffs. Four games, all shown one right after the next. Don't say you can't appreciate that!

New Jersey beats Philadelphia, 5-3; series tied at 1.

Thank the hockey gods. I couldn't take much more of the Flyers winning. The Parise-Zubrus-Elias line was definitely cooking last night, combining for 2 goals and 6 points, and Ilya Kovalchuk had three points himself, plus Martin Brodeur made 26 saves to seal the deal. This was the only game I couldn't watch (I need Center Ice badly), but I got enough of the gist of it to know that this, as every game is now, was a big one for NJ.

Pittsburgh beats Ottawa, 2-1; series tied at 1.

A much low-scoring event than was Game 1 (though don't worry, the other three games more than made up for it). Brian Elliot did his best, but in the end it was Sidney Crosby making an excellent move on Jason Spezza and three other Ottawa Senators to assist on the winning goal by Kris Letang. One of the highlights of this game? Former Islander Andy Sutton's vicious hit on Jordan Leopold. Leopold, focused on the puck and the D already on him (Nick Foligno), barely even caught sight of the freight train that was Sutton until he'd already been hit. They call it a clean hit, and I saw no signs of an elbow, but it won't ingratiate him one bit with Pens fans.

Nashville beats Chicago, 4-1, take 1-0 series lead.

Antti Niemi? He was good, but he didn't compare to Pekka Rinne, who made some fantastic saves in order to keep the high-scoring Hawks offense off the board. Also, he didn't let in the two headscratchers Niemi did- one an unlucky bounce, the next an unfortunate rebound, both going to the stick of J.P. Dumont. Dumont got the first star of the game for his efforts, and two empty-netters sealed the deal for Music City.

Detroit beats Phoenix, 7-4; series tied at 1.

What a game this was. Five goals in four minutes in the third period- all trading off, Detroit, Phoenix, then the Wings, then the Coyotes again, until finally Justin Abdelkader got the deciding goal. Then Henrik Zetterberg capped off a hat trick, Valtteri Filppula got his second, and the Wings skated off with the victory (to my chagrin). You wanna talk drama? This and the next game had plenty of it. Not a lot of defense, but plenty of action!

San Jose beats Colorado, 6-5 (OT); series tied at 1.

The Sharks needed this one as well... and they got it, in dramatic fashion. Much like the Coyotes-Wings game, the Avs and Sharks exchanged goals, and Colorado went late into the third period with a 5-4 lead- until Joe Pavelski got to the front of the net and knotted it up at 5 with 30 seconds to go. Then Devin Setoguchi put it away for San Jose at 5:22 of OT, on the power play. After watching the end of the Hawks game, then the end of the 'Yotes game, by this point all I could do was turn off the TV, turn over on the sofa and sleep... and yes, I did sleep on the sofa. My little cousin took my bed over. But it was worth it!

So today's games are as follows: Buffalo-Boston, currently in progress (the Sabres lead 2-0), Montreal-Washington at 7:00 p.m. and the L.A. Kings in Vancouver at 10:00. Drunk on hockey? Nawww. This is just a pleasant buzz to start off. :)