Just a few things that caught my eye ...

• Claude Giroux -- the best player in the world. Or so says his coach, Peter Laviolette. And after that first shift on Sunday ...

• Jaroslav Halak who? Brian Elliot owns the blue paint right now even if Halak returns to practice Monday.

• ssssssSSSSSSS. That's the sound of the fuse that has been lit in San Jose. It just remains to be seen whether Doug Wilson gets to blow things up or he's the first one blown out of town.

• There are two players I'd pick to build a franchise around right now and neither is named Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin or Evgeni Malkin. I'd take Jonathan Toews or Claude Giroux for leadership, talent, two-way play and clutch performance over those three any day.

• Milan Lucic, where have you been? Or better yet, where are you? Two assists Sunday are nice but c'mon -- you need to set the tone ... and you're not.

• Patrice Bergeron took one face-off Sunday. My money is on a shoulder injury and that won't get better until he gets some rest.

• When will the clock strike 12 on the Cinderella season of the Ottawa Senators? Jason Spezza finally showed up on the scoreboard and now Daniel Alfredsson may be back. Maybe the Rangers' owner did curse them earlier this year when he said the blueshirts were built to take the Cup.

• Jose Theodore is playing like he did a decade ago. OK, so he won't win the Hart or Vezina like he did in 2001-02. But he might pull off a first-round victory just like he did when he carried the eighth-seed Habs to a Round 1, upset victory over the Bruins that year.

• I'd forgotten that Andy McDonald won a Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks. He scored 10 goals that postseason; he already has four in these playoffs. Just saying.

• It's funny that just when Dale Hunter convinces the Caps to put aside ego and play as a team, Dan Bylsma loses that power over the Pens.

• Bullcrap aside, the Flyers-Penguins series was the best hockey I've seen in a very long time. And yes, I'm now rooting for the Flyers in the East.

• The first 10 games of Raffi Torres' suspension were incident-based; the next 15 were purely reputation-based. His suspension won't be a disincentive for anyone ... except maybe Torres himself. Next season. 

• A quick aside? Raffi Torres got five games more than Todd Bertuzzi did when he ended Steve Moore's career. 

• Don't be surprised to find out that Sidney Crosby will be taking some extended time away from training over the next few months. That Kunitz that Evgeni Malkin laid on him in Game 5 knocked him off his game and the hit by Claude Giroux on Sunday rendered him ineffective in everything except the PP.

• LMFAO -- not the group but my condition when I saw CBC's analyst and Battle of the Blades star, P.J. Stock, pimping Depends Real Fit for Men. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.