APLogan Couture of the San Jose Sharks was injured in the second period of Game 3 on Saturday night vs. the Los Angeles Kings on a hit from Jeff Carter. He left for the trainers’ room, but returned later in the period to an ovation from the fans.

They would give him an even bigger ovation in overtime.

Couture scored the power-play game-winner 1:29 into overtime to give the Sharks a 2-1 victory and to cut the Kings’ lead in the series to 2-1.

The Sharks began overtime on a 5-on-3 power play after Robyn Regehr went off for hooking Tommy Wingels and 19:18 of the third and Trevor Lewis went off for goalie interference for running into Antti Niemi with five seconds left.

After the first power play ended, Couture set up in the slot and received a one-touch pass from Patrick Marleau, burying the puck high past Jonathan Quick for the win and his fourth of the playoffs.

During her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Memorial Cup in Saskatoon on Saturday night, Alexis Normand forgets the words around 15 seconds in. That’s OK. We’ve all seen this happen at a sporting event.

It’s what follows that makes this, perhaps, the biggest train-wreck version of the anthem ever heard at a hockey game:

From the Yahoo! Sports Canada junior hockey blog Buzzing The Net:

The Saskatoon singer, who performs folk and jazz music, started falteringly in front of the large crowd and a Portland team which is not only based in the United States, but also has 10 Americans in its lineup. The rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner seemed to unravel once Normand got to the third line. Then the "whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight" was bowdlerized into "those broad stripes and bright stars... at the dawn's early light." The Credit Union Centre crowd seemed amused initially. Eventually, thousands of Canadians came to the rescue and completed the

Courtesy of Katie Baker, this “Sounds of the Game” video the NHL produced for Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is probably the closest thing we’ll get to an HBO ‘24/7’-esque look at the game this season. (Stupid no good lousy lockout.)

Among the highlights:

• Karl Alzner asking Derek Dorsett where “they found the aquarium to fit” his head.

• Ryan Getzlaf looking up before a faceoff and yelling to Jonathan Ericsson “You’re not scary!”

• Did Pascal Dupuis call for “a [Mike] Bossy up the wall?”

• Bobby Ryan’s subtle “it’s comin’ Jimmy” to Jimmy Howard as he skates by the crease.

• Erik Karlsson, 2012 Norris Trophy winner, giving P.K. Subban his endorsement in the handshake line for the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens.

• And, of course: Daniel Alfredsson leading the cheers in the Sens dressing room.

Good stuff NHL. More of this please.

APCarolina Hurricanes fans can exhale, put down the whiskey bottle and look forward to training camp: Eric Staal isn’t going to miss significant time after the knee-on-knee hit from Alex Edler of the Vancouver Canucks during the Canada/Sweden IIHF World Championships game on Thursday.

According to the Hurricanes, an MRI on Staal’s right knee “revealed a third-degree sprain of the medial collateral ligament (MCL). Surgery will not be required to repair the ligament, and Staal’s rehabilitation should last three months. It is expected that he will be healthy and ready to play to start the 2013-14 season.”

To say it looked a lot worse would be an understatement.

Staal needed to be helped from the ice after writhing in pain for a few minutes following the collision with Edler, the Team Sweden defenseman who was given a 5-minutes major and a game misconduct, and then was suspended for the rest of the tournament.

Getty ImagesIn 2012, the Chicago Blackhawks’ penalty kill failed them in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

They gave up 4 goals on 19 chances in a loss to the Phoenix Coyotes, who entered the postseason with the 29th best power play in the NHL. The Hawks had the 27th best PK in the regular season; those struggles continues in the playoffs.

So they remedied that in the offseason, bringing in Los Angeles Kings assistant coach and penalty kill architect Jamie Kompon. After the lockout ended, they converted offensive forwards Marcus Kruger and Michael Frolik in special teams defenders.

The results were stunning: The PK provided the backbone for the Blackhawks’ 24-game streak with at least one point earned, and the team gave up the fewest power-play goals in the regular season (18) while finishing with the third-best penalty kill (87.2 percent).

In the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs … well, it’s been perfect: 20 times shorthanded, 20 kills, including a perfect 17-for-17 in Round 1 against the Minnesota Wild (17.9 percent in the regular season.

Sports editor Josh Lewis of the Estevan Mercury in Saskatchewan is a big Toronto Maple Leafs fan. The kinds that had his hopes and dreams crushed by a three-goal rally by the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

Alas, Lewis is also the kind of Leafs fan who was willing to make a bet with a coworker at the weekly paper: Chad Saxon, an editor and a massive Boston Bruins fan. So after seeing the Leafs lose Game 7 in embarrassing fashion, Lewis suffered another embarrassment, as per the wager:

Ouch.

From Saxon, via email:

We bet on the series and the punishment was the loser had to wear a sandwich board and stand on the boulevard of our busiest street for half an hour at noon. The winner got to choose what went on the sign.

Obviously it was looking like I was pretty much screwed up until the comeback. Josh, who we had under suicide watch for a couple of days was a good sport and paid off his debt on Friday.

But wait, there’s more:

Writes Saxon:

“We are big supporters of

Cory Conacher has lived two NHL lives this season.

He played 35 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning, scoring 24 points and counted among the Calder Trophy candidates for most of 2013.

But at the trade deadline, he was dealt to the Ottawa Senators in a multi-player deal that had goalie Ben Bishop going back to Tampa. He scored two goals in 12 games, and was no longer in the rookie of the year race.

Yet while the Lightning failed to make the playoff cut, the Senators are a second-round playoff team – and Conacher has been an unsung hero for them.

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(Ed. Note: Well, here it is. The long gestating Toronto Maple Leafs Eulogy. Usually, we have the fans that hate eliminated teams the most be the ones to remember them fondly. But since the Leafs making the playoffs was such a monumental deal, we decided to go in another direction: Allowing the caustic Leas fans from Pension Plan Puppets to eulogize their own team. Here’s what happens when year of cynicism collides with sudden adoration for a Leafs team that lost in seven to the Bruins.)

By Pension Plan Puppets

Today we say goodbye to the 2012-13 Toronto Maple Leafs.

We come not to mourn their passing, but to celebrate how the 2012-13 Toronto Maple Leafs lived, loved and were led by a great man known as Randolph Robert Carlyle.

The world will long remember these Leafs for their ability to generate quality shots and for limiting their opponents’ quality chances.

Hockey fans, no matter their allegiance, will recall this team for the terror they struck in the hearts of the opposition by playing not one, but two enforcers for a few short minutes each night.

The 2012-13 Leafs will be remembered for changing their culture. They will be, and should be, remembered by the Jack Adams-worthy work of Coach Randy Carlyle.

GettyIf Coach Carlyle had to summarize this year’s Leafs in a single word, the word he would choose is “team toughness.”

As team founder Conn Smythe famously said, “if you can’t beat ‘em in the alley, you can’t beat ‘em on the ice” and nothing proves team toughness more than mutually agreed upon fights between fourth liners who barely see the ice (look all the way down to players 25 and 26).

The 2012-13 Leafs led the NHL with 44 fighting majors, and, as Coach Carlyle has taught fans everywhere -- teams cannot succeed in the NHL unless you’re willing to drop the mitts almost