New Jersey 3, Ottawa 2, 2OT
“Paging Doctor Langenbrunner!!! Paging Doctor Langenbrunner!!! Code Red!!! Code Red!!!”
If you didn’t hear that over the public address system during the second overtime between the New Jersey Devils and the Ottawa Senators, you just we’re listening. The New Jersey Devils recovered from losing a 2-0 lead when Jamie Langenbrunner scored at 1:55 of the second overtime period to beat the Senators 3-2. That sent the NHL Eastern Conference semifinal series back to Ottawa for Game 3 tomorrow night tied 1-1.
After controlling the opening 20 minutes where the Devils grabbed a two-goal lead, they spent the next sixty trying to stop the bleeding from a Code Red attack. When Ottawa tied it late, there were no signs New Jersey would get back on top of the Senators again. Brian Gionta made it 1-0 just 1:43 into the game, with Anton Volchenkov in the penalty box. His shot, the Devils’ first of the game, beat Ray Emery on the stick side. 
The Senators survived their missteps for most of the rest of the period. However, when Peter Schafer received four minutes in penalties for high-sticking Langenbrunner at 16:52 and Mike Fisher got two for slashing at 18:38, it was too much. There were only 2.7 seconds left when the puck dropped for the period’s final faceoff to Emery’s right. However, Brylin got the puck in the left circle and flicked it into the far corner of the net.
Someone, probably head coach Bryan Murray, must have said something during the intermission because the Senators played much better in the second period. The Senators woke up and Daniel Alfredsson, on the power play, scored to get them to within one. “After the second and third periods and overtime, we certainly carried the play and created chances,” Murray said, “but we didn’t finish.” Dany Heatley’s goal with 26.4 seconds to go in regulation, with Emery out of the net for an extra attacker, tied the game and sent it into overtime.
While the Senators dominated the first overtime, outshooting the Devils 13-7, the Devils had some excellent chances. The Senators also hurt themselves with two penalties, including an embarrassing minor for having too many men on the ice while they were on a power play, courtesy of a holding penalty to New Jersey’s Richard Matvichuk.
During the second overtime period, the call over the loud speaker came. Langenbrunner got away on a breakaway after blocking a shot by Ottawa’s Joe Corvo and beat Emery with a low shot on the glove side just after the second extra period started. “That’s hockey,” said Corvo after the game. “It was just a bad bounce. I think it hit his skate and went right to him.”
“I don’t know what it hit,” Langenbrunner admitted. “I think my skate. It was just a bad bounce but it landed on my stick. I must have missed eight chances in the game, so to get it in OT is sweet.”
Detroit 3, San Jose 2
After the slow start in their last game against the San Jose Sharks, the Detroit Red Wings brought out their secret weapon. 
Al Sobotka. No, Sobotka isn’t some phenom from the AHL you never heard of. He’s the Zamboni driver at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, and it was his job to swing the smelly, eight-legged octopus around the ice prior to the game, stinking up the place. Then the Wings took over. Stinking up the place.
“The momentum didn’t go the right way here tonight,” coach Mike Babcock said. “Then we really got nervous, they get bigger, you get smaller and that’s the just way the game goes. We were fortunate to get through the first period and get ourselves regrouped.”
Joe Thornton had a goal and an assist in the first 4:17, and San Jose held onto the two-goal lead until Henrik Zetterberg scored late in the first period. It took Detroit nearly 13 minutes to get a shot.
The Sharks made a rare mistake early in the third period with a Detroit-like giveaway. Dan Cleary made them pay for it with the short-handed goal that made 2-all. Cleary continues to make big plays in the playoffs, scoring his second goal of the postseason with the game-tying shorthanded goal in the third period. “My whole philosophy this playoffs has been shoot, shoot, shoot and you know you can’t pass up the opportunity to shoot,” Cleary said. “I got it and I was just like get rid of it, get rid of it, go high, and I just caught him (Nabokov) off guard.”
San Jose had two power plays midway through the final period, but took only one shot on the first opportunity and three on the second. Pavel Datsyuk of the Wings scored off a rebound with 1:24 left. “That was the key to the game, killing those penalties and scoring the shorthanded goal,” goalie Dominik Hasek said. “We talked about being aggressive, too, and we went to the net and did those things.”
“We had opportunities throughout the game and Hasek made some huge saves,” Sharks coach Ron Wilson said. “But I think about the dumb mistakes we made in the third period, you can’t make those mistakes in a playoff game. A turnover on the power play (that led to Cleary’s game-tying goal), just the whole last shift when they scored the goal (Datsyuk), we didn’t do one thing right on the shift.”
Hasek made 17 saves, and Evgeni Nabokov stopped 19 shots, in Detroit’s 3-2 victory over the Sharks that evened the Western Conference semifinal at a game apiece.
“It was good to see us battle and keep working hard,” Hasek said. “We needed this game.”
Sure didn’t want to disappoint Al Sobotka and the smelly, eight-legged octopus.
