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VANCOUVER -- When the red light came on, it was clear that somebody had made a mistake. Either it was Dan Hamhuis, attempting to carry the puck through the neutral zone with Trevor Lewis pressuring him from behind; or it was the official, failing to call Lewis for taking him down.

"I was told that wasn't a penalty," Alain Vigneault deadpanned in the postgame presser.

Regardless of who erred (I'm saying Hamhuis), the Canucks' blueliner lost his footing and the puck, and Jarrett Stoll turned back towards Cory Schneider with possession. Stoll did not err, beating Schneider on the short side to give the Los Angeles Kings the 2-1 overtime victory.

And, just like that, Stanley Cup runners up from a year ago and the reigning Presidents' Trophy winners were eliminated from the playoffs in 5 games.

Nobody in the Canucks' locker room was pointing any fingers on the game-winning goal. Rather, they traced the cause of the early exit a little further back -- to Games 1 and 2, games the team felt they ceded far too easily.

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Pittsburgh came into the postseason as the hottest and most formidable team in the NHL. They finally had Sidney Crosby back, Evgeni Malkin was at the top of his game, Kris Letang had emerged as an elite defenceman, and with everything in its right place, they looked nigh unbeatable.

Except to the Philadelphia Flyers, the league's highest-scoring team in the regular season and perhaps the only franchise gutsy enough to look at the offensive juggernaut the Penguins had become with Crosby back in the fold and say, 'Yeah, we can beat that.'

[ Recap: Flyers beat Penguins 5-1 to win series ]

The Penguins battled hard, but in the end, they couldn't overcome the 3-0 hole. On Sunday, the Philadelphia Flyers put an end to one of the most entertaining postseason series in recent memory, eliminating their state rivals in six games with a 5-1 home ice victory.

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Sen. John McCain takes in the Phoenix Coyotes game, while attempting to ignore the irony of watching the representative from Arizona fail to close out the representative from Illinois.

No. 1 Star: Craig Anderson, Ottawa Senators

Most thought that Henrik Lundqvist would be the standout goaltender in this series, but Craig Anderson has battled the New York Rangers' netminder to a standstill through 5 games. Their GAA and SV% are nearly identical. The only major difference? Anderson has one more win after being the best backstop in the building a Game 5 shutout. He made 41 saves in a 2-0 victory. Jason Spezza scored the only goal the Senators needed, and then he added an empty-netter in the game's final minute to seal it.

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During the Olympics, Ryan Kesler came under fire from Canadian fans for saying that he "hated" Team Canada prior to Team USA's round robin matchup with the hometown favourites.

On Friday, this controversy was seemingly sparked up again when the Vancouver Canucks' centre told Mike Dunsmore of Fox Sports that he preferred American fans after the Canucks' Game 4 win in Los Angeles. Dusmore asked Kesler how the Vancouver fans might react to an elimination loss on home ice in Game 5, and Kesler responded thusly:

I'm an American and I like playing in the States. The fans in Canada are great but this is where the real hockey fans are in my opinion. I love the States and this will always be a home for me.

Except it wasn't Ryan Kesler. It was Kevin Bieksa, pretending to be Kesler.

Prior to Game 5 versus the Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers' star Claude Giroux got candid about his feelings for the Pittsburgh fanbase, admitting, unsurprisingly, he didn't much care for them. "We don't really like the fans here," he said.

To underscore his disdain for the people of Southwest Pennsylvania, Giroux took things a step further during the pregame skate, punking a few Pittsburgh fans down by the glass by making like he was going to toss them a puck, then holding it and skating away like a boss.

"Here you go -- JUST KIDDING LOSERS."

And with that bit of elite dickery, Claude Giroux sacrificed even the remote possibility of ever being liked by Pittsburgh fans. Although I don't think he cares.

Frankly, I'm disappointed Giroux didn't follow this up with a D-X crotch chop while his theme music played, because seriously, this is some WWE-style heel taunting. Those kids are lucky they were protected by glass, or Giroux might have ripped their poster in half while laughing in their faces.

Follow Harrison Mooney on Twitter at @HarrisonMooney

APYou can understand why Joel Quenneville would be at his wit's end with Corey Crawford. The Chicago Blackhawks backstop has been the wrong kind of difference-maker in this series.

Two nights after Crawford let Phoenix Coyotes' winger Mikkel Boedker play the hero with a short-angle shot in Game 3's extra frame, the netminder surrendered another back-breaking, soft, OT goal in Game 4. Now, unsurprisingly, the Chicago Blackhawks' coach is considering a turn to Ray Emery on the eve of a must-win Game 5. From ESPN:

Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said Friday he's considering pulling starting goaltender Corey Crawford in favor of Ray Emery for Game 5 of their Western Conference quarterfinal series against the Phoenix Coyotes.

"We're talking about that," said Quenneville, who usually announces his starting goaltender the day before the game. "Don't foresee any announcements."

Quenneville's right to consider a change.

"I have no clue," Corey Crawford told reporters when asked how Mikkel Boedker's shot got past him.

But he wasn't the only one dumbfounded by it. Boedker's shot was hardly a shot at all. The puck was moving about as quickly as "Meet Joe Black" and, like that movie, it never got off the ground. All Crawford had to do there was seal off the bottom of the ice, but somehow, it ran right through him, like the cars in the accident scene from "Meet Joe Black."

("Meet Joe Black" was on Super Channel the other night.)

Still, I'm not so sure Quenneville should make the switch.

It's highly unlikely that a move to Ray Emery will improve anything. Through 34 games this season, Emery's even-strength save percentage, usually the best indicator of a goaltender's ability, was .899. Of the 42 netminder with more than 30 appearances, the only guy with a lower even-strength save percentage was Dwayne Roloson.

In short, Joel Quenneville is right to want better goaltending than he's getting in this series, and it will be the reason for Chicago's ousting if he can't find it, but he's wrong to think he'll get it from Ray Emery. In an elimination game, you need to play your best option, and despite what we've seen from him so far, Crawford's it.

One sad hockey player

No. 1 Star: Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils

After letting a 3-goal lead slip away and being pulled in a Game 3 loss, Brodeur deflected any criticism that he was no longer a difference-maker by making 26 saves in a 4-0 win over the Florida Panthers. It was the 24th playoff shutout of Brodeur's illustrious career, an NHL record. His best save came when he stoned Kris Versteeg on a 3-on-2 by kicking out a pad:

No. 2 Star: Braden Holtby, Washington Capitals

Brodeur wasn't the only netminder bouncing back after an iffy game 3. Holtby recovered swimmingly, making 44 saves to keep the Boston Bruins at bay in the Capitals' 2-1 win. The rookie goalie wasn't just the best player on the ice in Game 4 -- he was the most composed, giving his team the calming presence they needed to stay focused and tie the series heading back to Boston for Game 5. Alexander Semin scored the game-winner with an absolute laser of a wrister:

No. 3 Star: Mikkel Boedker, Phoenix Coyotes

Just as he did in Game 3,

Tell me if you've heard this one: with the Phoenix Coyotes leading the Chicago Blackhawks in the dying seconds of regulation, Chicago pulled the goaltender in desperation and, miraculously, managed to send it to overtime.

It was déjà vu all over again for the Coyotes, who saw their second chance to take a two-game lead in the series slipping away after Michael Frolik notched things up at 18:34 of the third. Thankfully for Phoenix fans, Game 4 ended in the good kind of déjà vu: For the second straight game, Mikkel Boedker scored the 3-2 overtime winner:

The play developed when the puck squirted out to the neutral zone, where Boedker and Nick Leddy raced out to be the first to collect it. Unfortunately for Leddy, he not only lost the race, but he gave up the centre of the ice to do so, allowing Boedker to poke the puck past him and dash into the Blackhawks zone.

Just as in Game 3, it didn't take much for Boedker to beat Corey Crawford, who allowed the puck to sneak underneath him and into the goal. The Coyotes now head back to Jobing.com Arena with a 3-1 series lead and a chance to give the franchise's its first playoff win since 1987.