NHL Playoffs: Night 1- Pens, Wings, and Caps

((HT: NHL/Versus/CSNWashington))

Alexander Semin kept the Caps-Rangers game from heading into a second overtime...
Good enough for a 1-0 series lead...


CSNWashington's Alan May had a good outburst in studio...


After a slow start, the Red Wings took care of the soon-to-be-moving Phoenix Coyotes 4-2. Johan Franzen was his normally-active self...


Marc-Andre Fleury was in equally good form for the Pens game 1 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Brooks Orpik had a multiple-point game as the Pens got the shutout...


Highlights from Vancouver and Anaheim when they become available...

Johan Franzen's Busy Night

Here's one way to get a win in a playoff series...

A natural hat trick... and briefly was credited with four goals in the first period as the Detroit Red Wings beat San Jose 7-1 to trial 3 games to one in their western conference semi-fional series...

Franzen did, eventually, score his fourth goal of the night on the power play in the third period. In all, he had six points -- a record for the Original Six franchise (Norm Ullman and Steve Yzerman each had five).

"You don't want to get swept, you want to show your home fans that you want to win this thing." Franzen said. "We wanted to have a good game for them. We won this one and now we've got to win the next one."

Here's the highlights...
((HT: NHL/TSN))


Chris Cuthbert was right: "Are you kidding...?"

Franzen Signed Through 2020...

And, no Diane Sawyer and Bill Muir had nothing to do with it...

Locking up Franzen for this length defrays the salary cap implications and keeps him happy UFN... and it gives them a shot to pay a lot over a long period to keep Hossa when his negotiations begin.

Detroit signed forward Johan Franzen ((pictured, thanks Detroit Free Press)) to an 11-year deal Saturday, keeping him off the free agent market and retaining talent that helped the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup.

"His production over the past year and a half, both regular season and playoffs, has been remarkable and we feel, at 29 years old, that he is just now entering the prime of his career," said general manager Ken Holland.

The Red Wings also kept forward Henrik Zetterberg off the market with a 12-year deal in January. They are hoping to do the same with forward Marian Hossa before he becomes a free agent this summer.

The team said the deal for Franzen, known as Mule, is the second-longest in team history, behind Zetterberg's. Terms were not disclosed.

Franzen, who is in his fourth NHL season, led Detroit with 34 goals. His 59 points trailed only Pavel Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Hossa. After averaging 11 goals in his first two seasons, Franzen had 27 goals last year in the regular season and 13 in the playoffs to help Detroit win the Stanley Cup.

Franzen sustained a subdural hematoma that kept him out of six games of the playoffs last year. At the time, he said blood pooled between his skull and brain and took two to three weeks to be absorbed.

Franzen was a third-round pick of the Red Wings in the 2004 draft.

John Stossel would be happy with Wings' owner Mike Ilitch's manipulation of the free enterprise system.

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