Game Recap

Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik unloaded a gargantuan hit on Boston's Daniel Paille this afternoon that sent the Bruins forward flying high into the air.

If this isn't the hit of the season, it's at least in the top three.

Rarely do highly anticipated NHL regular season games exceed the hype, but on Saturday the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins waged war in a classic regular season battle.

Friday, December 30 was the Chicago Blackhawks' final game of the 2011 calendar year, and it ended in a 3-2 win over longtime rival Detroit Red Wings.

This win over Detroit was not a cheap one. Joel Quenneville and the Hawks had to work for everything they earned during all 60 minutes of fast-paced, physical hockey.

The NHL has some of the toughest men on the face of the earth gracing its ice, but sometimes emotions run high.

That’s what happened when the New York Rangers took on the Florida Panthers and things got physical in front of Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers’ net.

Facing the likes of Jose Theodore, who had not lost to Boston in regulation since Tuukka Rask was a 17-year-old, the Bruins could have been forgiven for limiting their offerings to the 24-year-old stopper Friday night.

After all, while there has been a recent history of making Rask’s life a little tougher than colleague Tim Thomas’, another loss by a soccer score to Theodore would have been enough to mask that myth.

Finally, fans of the San Jose Sharks have seen the team at its best. Now the question is, will they play with this urgency moving forward?

Just 6:21 into the game, the Sharks had exorcised not only starting goalie Mathieu Garon, but their special-teams demons.

Following a shootout loss to the Islanders, Winnipeg Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec called out his teammates in a postgame press conference. He was unhappy with the play of his team, especially in the offensive zone.

It seemed to have worked.

On the night when former defenseman Scott Niedermayer's No. 27 was forever raised to the rafters in retirement, the current crop of New Jersey Devils did their part in defeating the Dallas Stars, 6-3, at the Prudential Center in Newark on Friday.

From the moment the puck was dropped, Capitals fans everywhere had to have been wondering if the Caps were able to bring their momentum from the 5-3 win over Ottawa back to the Verizon Center.

Following their 4-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, it seems that the Caps do, indeed, have a good deal of momentum behind them for the first time in a while.

The good:

Maybe some home cooking was all the New Jersey Devils needed.

That plus a goalie switch, two shorthanded goals and three shootout scores.

Returning to the Prudential Center in Newark after a four-game road trip in which they went 1-3-0, the Devils rebounded from a 3-0 deficit to top the Ottawa Senators, 5-4, in a shootout Thursday night.