Producing timely offense and perfectionist defense, Detroit is not only beating the Pittsburgh Penguins, they are shutting them out.

With first-period goals from Brad Stuart and Tomas Holmstrom and another lockdown effort, the Red Wings topped the Penguins 3-0 to take a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup finals on Monday night.

If they can match this twice in Pittsburgh, the Red Wings will return to Detroit with the Cup in tow.

Puck-possessing Detroit held onto it all night and registered 34 shots. After a 19-save effort in a 4-0 series-opening win Saturday, Chris Osgood stopped 22 in a rocking-chair game and earned his third blanking of the playoffs — 13th of his career.

“I play the game as it comes,” Osgood said. “I love playing behind these guys. I don’t need 40 shots to play the game or to feel good. I’m confident regardless. I’m not really into stats too much, just into winning.”

Kawai moved away from his home and family in Eniwa, Japan, at 15 to pursue his dream of playing hockey in Canada.

The 19-year-old is living that dream to the fullest at the Memorial Cup, which is the championship of the 60-team Canadian Hockey League.

“I always wanted to come to Canada and play. When I was little I watched NHL games on TV,” Kawai said prior to Gatineau’s game against Belleville on Monday.

Japanese-Canadians in hockey are common enough. Devin Setoguchi and Kawai’s favourite Paul Kariya are just a couple of them.
But media relations personnel from the CHL were scratching their heads to come up with previous players who were born in Japan and played major junior hockey.

Suffice to say, Kawai is a rarity.

“I think I’m the first Japanese player to play major junior,” Kawai theorized. “I know there’s half-Japanese, half-Canadian players, but I’ve never heard of a Japanese-born player.”

The only cup the Flyers will drink out of in June might come with a fancy umbrella at some swanky vacation resort.

Given the state of the four franchises, which also include the Phillies and the Eagles, the Flyers could be considered top contenders to snap the miserable skid. Yes, their season ended Sunday in a huge thud with their 6-0 loss to Pittsburgh in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals. But the stunning turnaround from worst team in the NHL last season to conference finalists this year has the Flyers flying high about their future.

“We’ll remember all the good things we did, the fact that nobody gave us a chance to even make the playoffs at the beginning of the year,” centre Danny Briere said. “Hopefully, we were able to gain that experience that’s going to make us even better next year. I think we took a step in the right direction, but right now it’s kind of tough to look at the big picture.”

If the league moves to 84 games the players would actually play LESS games, how you ask? Right now the NHL teams play nine pre-season games, and 82 regular season games. Players feel that with training camp and pre-season the lead up to regular season play is much to long. If the NHL moves to an 84 game season they would drop four of the pre-season games and add two regular season games. So if you include pre-season games and regular season games the players will actually play two less games overall. How does this help the league?

With more games, and an earlier start to the season, the league will be able to be more creative with scheduling which will allow one more home game per team. This is not the only benefit to the league. With 30 teams playing an extra two games that means 60 more regular season games being played overall. In the words of NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly ” The NHL makes more off of two regular season games than four pre-season games”

How does this benefit the players?

The players will have a shorter training camp, less pre-season games, and an earlier start to the season and likely a slight increase in salary. Also the fans will benefit from seeing an earlier start to regular season play.

When will the 84 game season begin?

If it happens it will likely take place in 2011. It is too late to implement a new schedule and longer season for the 2009 season and 2010 is when the winter olympics will take place so it is not likely the NHL will complicate things further with a new schedule. This makes 2011 the most likely year for the NHL to start an 84 game season.

The 1980 Miracle on Ice victory at the Olympics was named the best hockey moment of the century at the International Ice Hockey Federation’s gala dinner on Saturday night.

Paul Henderson’s winning goal for Canada at the 1972 Summit Series was selected as the second best story.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in attendance and mentioned that event during his speech.

“For Canadians of my generation, the 1972 Summit Series stands out above the rest,” said Harper. “It was an epic battle.”

The IIHF compiled a list of the top 100 moments to commemorate its 100th birthday and unveiled the final 10 here at the world championship. It also named an All-Century Team that included Wayne Gretzky at centre.

The Great One was a unanimous selection and the only Canadian chosen by the panel of 56 writers from 16 different countries.

Veteran Sergei Fedorov got the all-important opening goal as Russia used its quick-strike attack to down Finland 4-0 on Friday and advance to the final. “It seems to me that almost everything came together,” said the 38-year-old Fedorov, whose team is seeking its first world championship gold since 1993.

Danis Zaripov, Alexei Morozov and Maxim Sushinsky also scored for Russia, which avenged a 2-1 semifinal loss to the Finns at last year’s world championship in Moscow.

Evgeny Nabokov made 23 saves for his second shutout in a row after Russia blanked Switzerland 6-0 in the quarter-finals. He last allowed a goal to Romano Lemm at 18:25 of the third period of Russia’s final round robin game against the Swiss.

“The coaching staff asked us to play a bit more defensively and the guys took pride in playing back a bit, holding onto your man,” Fedorov said. “It was a team effort.”

Russia will meet Canada in Sunday’s final after the hosts edged Sweden 5-4. It’s the first time the two hockey powers have met in this tournament’s final.

It is the Russians’ first trip to the final since 2002, when they were beaten 4-3 by Slovakia in Linkoping, Sweden.

Canada will face Sweden, a 3-2 overtime winner earlier Wednesday in Quebec City, in the semifinals Friday in Quebec City. The Canadians beat the Swedes last year in the semifinals in Moscow.

“Once again, they held on tough,” said goalie Cam Ward, who made 22 saves. “Up until the middle of the second period, they gave us a little bit of a scare.”

Coach Ken Hitchcock also admitted to having a few nervous moments during the game.

“When it was 2-2, I was wondering if that ferry had a direct route to Columbus,” the Blue Jackets coach said before boarding a plane to Quebec instead. “The players play and they don’t worry about things. We sweated all day today as a coaching staff. These are defining moments for you as a coach because if you lose this game, you all are writing about us and me tomorrow. And it’s not going to be pleasant.”

Rick Nash added two goals and Dany Heatley, Ryan Getzlaf and Jonathan Toews also scored for Canada in its 16th straight victory in the event.

“They knew they were better, they knew they were more talented and they knew if they stayed with it they were going to win,” Hitchcock said.

Morten Ask and Mathis Olimb scored for Norway in its first quarterfinal appearance.

Toews broke a 2-2 tie on a power play midway through the second period, beating goalie Pal Grotnes with a hard wrist shot. Roy then scored goals 2:42 apart to give Canada a 5-2 lead before the second intermission.

“They got three fast goals there,” Grotnes said. “Then it was over.”

The Stanley Cup Playoffs is an elimination tournament, where two teams battle to win a best-of-seven series in order to advance to the next round. If the score is tied at the end of the third period an overtime period is played. If the score is tied at the end of an overtime period, additional overtime periods are played until a winner is determined. Overtimes are also full periods of twenty minutes (of five-on-five hockey), rather than the five minutes (of four-on-four hockey, followed by a shootout,) in the regular season. The overtime is played with golden goal rule (sudden death) so the game ends as soon as either team scores a goal. The higher-ranked team is said to be the team with the home-ice advantage. Four of the seven games are played at this team’s home venue - the first and second, and, where necessary, the fifth and seventh, with the other games played at the lower-ranked team’s home venue.

One playoff that was contested in the NHL used the following format: the division winners were seeded one through three, and then the next five teams with the best records in the conference were seeded four through eight. However, the league has yet to announce the playoff format for the 2005-06 seasons, and with the new scheduling format that emphasizes division play, the league is reportedly exploring placing greater emphasis on division standings by taking the top 2 teams in each division, along with the teams with the next two best records for each Conference’s playoff field. In the event of a tie in points in the standings, ties are broken first by amount of wins, and then by record against the team that is tied (disregarding the first game played at the arena of the team that hosted more games than the other during the season series, if applicable). Next, the tied team with the better positive differential between goals scored for and against is given preference, and in the rare circumstance these tiebreakers are insufficient, the Commissioner has the authority to devise some other means of breaking the tie. The first round of the playoffs, or Conference Quarterfinals, consists of the first seed playing the eighth seed, the second playing the seventh, third playing the sixth, and the fourth playing the fifth. In the Conference Semifinals, the top remaining Conference seed plays against the fourth remaining seed, and the second remaining seed plays the third remaining seed. In the next round, the Conference Finals, the two remaining teams in each conference play each other, with the Conference champions proceeding to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Jaromir Jagr and Fedor Tyutin scored in regulation for the Rangers, who are getting solid goaltending, timely goals and winning on consecutive nights while closing to within three points of East-leading New Jersey.

“We’ve really galvanized as a group to find a way to do things and get points,” Rangers coach Tom Renney said. “That speaks volumes for their character.”