Just a few things that caught my eye ...

• Sometimes it just doesn't pay to try, try again. Like dumping the puck up the wall to escape the defensive zone. I'm talking to you, Rangers. It didn't work in the first or the second. So why keep doing it in the third?

• Ilya Kovalchuk's release is absolutely sick. Unfreakingly insane.

• More cycling, more dominant board play and more chances in tight. See what a little line shuffling did for the Devils? Nice work, Peter DeBoer.

• The poke check is usually an all-or-nothing play. Martin Brodeur got big-time lucky with a flop and a foot after woofing on an early poke. Then again, don't the biggest names have the biggest horseshoes?

• Larry Brooks never gets John Tortorella's jokes so it doesn't really surprise me that he doesn't get Martin Brodeur's humor, either. Really, does anyone other than Brooks and his editors think Marty would actually publicly instruct his teammates to shoot at the faces of their opponents? He's no Cole Hamels ...

• Chris Kreider really is impressive. He atoned for his failure to clear the puck on the opening goal in the first with a power-play marker in the second. He'll be up and down next year, but his fantasy future is hot, hot, HOT.

• Getting hit by Steve Bernier is like getting hit by a Mack truck. I'd never given him credit for that before. I really should have.

• I like Shane Doan; I really do. But did he actually think before he spoke when he said (before the Martin Hanzal suspension came down), "Hopefully, they'll understand it's a situation where he really didn't have a choice." C'mon. Really? Hanzal had Dustin Brown in his sights from the circle.

• Marian Gaborik found himself beside the grocery stick for most of the third. Not because of his lack of offense, but because he stood up instead of dropping to block Bryce Salvador's shot ... you know, the one that Ryan Carter tipped in to tie things up? It's never good to be in Tort's bad books. Just ask Larry Brooks.