SAN JOSE HAS LOST THEIR WAY

And then he said, "You're with me, 50/50 Cotton/Poly Blend With the hole under the Armpit."

NHL PLAYOFFS DAY 24

• OILERS 6 SHARKS 3 (Edmonton leads 3-2): Sergei Samsonov, you're a top-end offensive player. What were you doing, going down to a block a shot? Careful, you might give Jason Spezza some ideas. By the way, Ottawa city council is considering a motion to name a street after Spezza. It's a one-way street. (Groans.) Seriously though, I didn't expect this from Edmonton, who seems to have thrown the Sharks off their game and kept San Jose from beating them down low in the offensive zone. Serves the San Jose fans after they booed O Canada tonight.
  That said, it might play into the Sharks' hands that there's two days off before Game 6 back in the northern Alberta -- it gives them more time to get Evgeny Nabokov ready to play. Vesa Toskala (11 goals on 49 shots in the past two games) may not have lost his confidence, but his teammates might have lost it in him. Ron Wilson, like Randy Carlyle when he turned to Ilya Bryzgalov in the Anaheim-Calgary series, has nothing to lose by making the change. By the way, Eric McErlain is wondering if the Sharks have started to tune out Wilson.
• HURRICANES 4 DEVILS 1 (Carolina wins 4-1): The NHL should get serious about checking from behind. Amateur hockey has done a good job of getting it out of their game, but this playoff season it seems to be epidemic. Carolina's Cory Stillman got nailed along the boards tonight by the Devils' David Hale. Stillman scored on the ensuing power play, but still, there's too risk to the players.
  So there's going to be at least one rookie starting goaltender in the final, between Cam Ward of the Hurricanes and the Sabres' Ryan Miller. Throw in Bryzgalov and you've got three yearling netminders among the NHL's Final Four -- and potentially, the 36-year-old Dwayne Roloson.
• Last NHL thought: The Final Four includes off-the-beaten-path markets in Anaheim and Raleigh, N.C., and Buffalo, whose fans get Hockey Night in Canada on basic cable. Man, if NBC expected to get any kind of ratings for NHL telecasts, they might actually be worried.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Turns out Josh Towers was fine -- he economized even better than Roy Halladay did one night earlier, needing only 76 pitches to pitch into the ninth inning in an 8-3 Jays win over the Devil Rays. So does this mean Towers is going to be like John Tudor in 1985 (who started 1-8 and finished the season 21-10, as a I recall). Well, no. But it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
• So Barry Bonds is 1-for-26 and is still looking for No. 714. I'll lose sleep over some things tonight, but not over that.
• Check it out: it won't be long until my favourite of tennis' Grand Slams, the French Open, gets going, and Rafael Nadal just beat Roger Federer again, giving the Spaniard lefty his record-tying 53rd straight win on clay. The French is the best. Especially when you're watching some power-baseliner American get knocked out by some guy you never heard of.

That's all for now. Enjoy Monday, as much as that can be possible.