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Special Guest Star: Bates Battaglia, former NHLer and winner of "The Amazing Race", joins us.

• The Canadiens and Senators get nasty.

• The Canucks are on the brink of disaster.

• Analysis of every Stanley Cup Playoffs series.

• Oh, the NHL's suspensions are causing more strife, too.

Question of the Day: What are your thoughts on the Calder Trophy finalists? Email puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or hit us on Twitter with the hashtag #MvsW to @wyshynski and @jeffmarek.

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Kyle Hay is a Toronto Maple Leafs fan who exists somewhere between the realms of incredibly brave and undeniably crazy: He attended Game 2 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals in Boston proudly wearing his Leafs sweater with matching blue mask.

Again: A Leafs fan. In Boston. During the playoffs.

Still, that decision should never lead to this unconscionable violence: Hay was knocked out cold by a sucker punch after the Leafs defeated the Boston Bruins in Game 2.

That punch resulted in Hay getting three staples in the back of his head, a swollen cheek and a concussion (paging Brendan Shanahan). He doesn’t remember the end of the first Maple Leafs playoff victory since 2004.

Hay and his friend Bryan spoke with Steve Dangle of The Leafs Nation about the incident:

“After the game I was blind-sided with a sucker punch while I had my mask on,” Kyle, who was also celebrating his birthday, explained. “Honestly, I do not remember what happened.”

Obviously Kyle does not remember being knocked out, so he needed his friends to fill him in. Bryan helps there. “Our buddy Patrick was the only one to see what actually happened and was with him the entire time afterwards. You can see him in the video. We came down the same stairs about two minutes later and that's when we realized what had happened. “

Comments on the YouTube video and on other forums suggest that maybe Kyle and his friends were antagonizing Bruins fans after the game, and perhaps “had it coming.” Kyle says that’s not true. “There was no chirping going on when it happened. Just a pissed off fan, I guess.”

The Leafs blog Pension Plan Puppets attempted to procure Game 3 tickets for Kyle as a “birthday” present.

The 2012-13 Calder Trophy were announced on Monday, with right wing Brendan Gallagher of the Montreal, Canadiens, center Jonathan Huberdeau of the Florida Panthers and left wing Brandon Saad of the Chicago Blackhawks are the three finalists for the award given “to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition,” as voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

Getty ImagesThe Calder field was, by far, the most crowded for any major award in the NHL this season. Seven players were within four points of each other at the top of the rookie points standings, with Nail Yakupov and Huberdeau tied at the top with 31.

Yakupov also led all rookies with 17 goals, thanks to a final-game hat trick that pushed him to the top. Gallagher was second with 15 goals, while Huberdeau was third with 14 goals after leading all rookies for most of the season’s second half.

On defense, Jonas Brodin of the Minnesota Wild (23:12), Justin Schultz of the Edmonton Oilers (21:26), Brenden Dillon of the Dallas Stars (21:22) and Jake Muzzin of the Los Angeles Kings (17:53) all played big minutes and contributed plenty.

So who wins the Calder this season?

Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals wasn’t exactly a joyous occasion for the Montreal Canadiens. Many fans were flat out embarrassed on Sunday night, both by the team’s effort and by the extracurricular activities that marred the 6-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators.

That said, please forgive RDS for its attempt to revise history and convince fans it was all just a nightmare:

@MtlProbzCarey Price was last seen sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth with this image paused on his PVR.

s/t @MtlProbz

The nasty, tense series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators – from gruesome injuries to zoological taunts – finally exploded in the third period of Game 3, right after the host Senators took a 4-1 lead.

Ladies and gents, we give you a Stanley Cup Playoffs line brawl:

Yeah, not exactly unpredictable this would happen given the personnel on the ice after Kyle Turris’s goal. Lots of waves to the crowd and victory laps from the Senators, given the score.

As the video shows, Zack Smith of Ottawa gave Ryan White a cross-check off the faceoff, which prompted White to give him a two-handed slash to the thigh. Jared Cowan skated over to take on White and then everyone started to dance.

The penalty fallout from the brawl; the names in parentheses are the players that were fouled or fought:

07:04 OTT Jared Cowen : Fighting - 5 min (Ryan White)
07:04 OTT Jared Cowen : Fighting - 5 min (Ryan White)
07:04 MTL Ryan White : Fighting - 5 min (Jared Cowen)
07:04 MTL Francis Bouillon

Getty ImagesRoberto Luongo started the first two games of the Vancouver Canucks’ series against the San Jose Sharks, after Cory Schneider was out with what the team called a “body injury.” Which is to say he would have gotten the Game 1 start over Luongo, if healthy.

Now, down 0-2 to the San Jose Sharks and headed to the Shark Tank on Sunday night, the Canucks are going with Schneider in a must-win Game 3. Said Coach Alain Vigneault (via the Canucks Twitter feed):

"Cory's playing. He's good to go. Goaltending hasn't been the issue, but prior to his injury, he was real good."

Said Schneider:

"I'm in tonight, I'm ready to play and I'm excited."

Schneider posted a 17-9-4 record with a 2.11 GAA and a .927 save percentage with 5 shutouts in 30 games this season. He has a 1-2 record in the Stanley Cup Playoffs with 11 goals allowed on 183 shots. That’s a 1.91 goals-against average. Last season, when he inherited the starting job against the Los Angeles Kings, he was 1-2 with a .960 save percentage and a 1.31 GAA.

But as his coach said: Goaltending has not been the issue.

Getty Images

Mikko Koivu and Zach Parise combined for 29 goals and 75 points in 48 games for the Minnesota Wild – roughly a quarter of the team’s total goals in the regular season.

Through two playoffs games against the Chicago Blackhawks, both players have zero points and are both a minus-3. Their linemate through the first two losses in the series, Charlie Coyle, has one assist and is a minus-1.

The primary reason: The Blackhawks’ line of Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa and Brandon Saad have outplayed them, even if Hossa’s goal is the only point they’ve mustered.

That’s the other way of looking at it, of course: That the Koivu/Parise line has also held the Toews line in check, while generating 17 shots in the two games in Chicago.

But with Patrick Kane a whirling dervish of offense on this line, the Toews line can afford to act as more of a shutdown unit if necessary – and when matched against the Koivu/Parise line, it’s what they’ve done.

Ritch DuncanWhere the Stanley Cup goes, oddness follows. So Puck Daddy dispatched friend of the blog Ritch Duncan to the NHL Store to see the Holy Grail … as well as “Inside The Actors Studio” host James Lipton and some guy named Michael J. Fox.

By Ritch Duncan

There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to spit it out.

James Lipton, host of Inside the Actor's Studio, has the Stanley Cup.

As I write these words, the greatest trophy in the world, the chalice that is not only awarded to the team that wins the greatest tournament in professional sport, but gives physical form to the respect and love of hockey history, is sitting in the home of the man who once gazed into the eyes of Martin Lawrence, and with a completely straight face said "Let's give our audience a treat, and have a look at the incomparable Shaneneh."

THAT James Lipton has the Stanley Cup. Right now.

And even more amazingly, I'm OK with that.

Friday night at 6:15 p.m., the NHL Store in Manhattan hosted a Q&A featuring James Lipton, The Stanley Cup, "keeper of the cup" Phil Pritchard, and Michael J. Fox. My office is only a 10 minute walk from the NHL store, so as a massive puckhead, former hockey blogger, Bruins fan, and admirer of the massive trainwrecks regularly provided by the NHL marketing department (Def Leppard putting the Stanley Cup upside down, anyone?) this event seemed weird enough that there was no way I could miss it.

And then, when I arrived, all ready to goof on how silly James Lipton was, they brought out the Stanley Cup, and snark just melted away.

That's how great the Stanley Cup is. Even James Lipton can't ruin it.