As soon as the Department of Player Safety requested an in-person hearing for Raffi Torres, you knew the San Jose Sharks' winger was in trouble. I mean, sure, bringing Raffi to New York simply gave them the option of suspending him for five games or more, but this is Raffi Torres we're talking about. If they came away from the hearing with even an inkling that Torres had made the head the principal point of contact when he hit Jarrett Stoll, they were going to exercise the crap out of that option.

Sure enough, they did. Sort of. Rather than putting a number on the suspension, the NHL has gotten creative with Torres, suspending the San Jose Sharks' winger for the remainder of the semifinal series -- anywhere from 3 to 6 games.

Here's Brendan Shanahan to explain the decision:

A word on the floating suspension itself: It's a sneaky decision, as the players have the right to appeal any suspension of six games or more, and we won't know if Torres's ban is six games for awhile now. Was that calculated or what?

The night of the hit, we asked if Torres had gotten the shoulder first, or if the head was the principal point of contact. The answer, from the Department of Player Safety: yes.

Yes on both fronts. He caught Stoll's shoulder first, but as Shanahan says twice in this video, it was "a glancing blow" on his way to the principal point of contact, the head.

After being bounced in the first round by the New York Rangers with a 5-0 loss in Game 7, Alex Ovechkin was upset. He was text-his-coach-upwards-of-20-times upset, which is, like, super upset.

But with the World Championships in full swing, there was an opportunity for quick redemption, so Ovechkin jumped on a plane to Helsinki to join Russia for the quarterfinals, hoping to put the five-goal elimination loss behind him.

In this, he was unsuccessful. On Thursday, Ovechkin saw the same result on the other side of the Atlantic, as Team Russia was eliminated from the tournament with an 8-3 loss to Team USA.

It was painful, especially towards the end. After the Russians trimmed the lead to 5-3, they fell apart completely. The Americans scored three times in 116 seconds to put this one away:

Deja 'vechkin, amirite? Har har har.

It was a historic loss for the Russians, who had never surrendered more than five goals to the Americans prior to this one.

You've got to feel for Ovechkin. Not only did he lose the last two games of the year by five goals each, but his KHL team during the lockout, Dynamo Moscow, won the Gagarin Cup without him.

Eliminated twice in a week in five-goal losses. The team that lost him won the championship. It's enough to make a man think he's the problem.

But lest you think the recipe for success is to be minus Ovechkin, the Capitals' winger was named Russia's best player in the loss, with a goal and an assist. So there's that.

UPDATE: Via the Washington Post, more Ovechkin news. He played on a fractured foot in Games 6 and 7 against the Rangers, and one assumes in this IIHF game as well:

In the first period of Game 6, Ovechkin blocked two shots by Rangers’ defenseman Ryan McDonagh. The first shot, at 14:29 of the first, struck his left foot. Replay of the game shows Ovechkin hesitant to get up after that block. Skating could not make the injury worse, the source said, so Ovechkin played with it through the rest of Game 6 and Game 7 against the Rangers. The fracture will only require rest to heal, the source said.

Follow Harrison Mooney on Twitter at @HarrisonMooney

Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.

• Enjoy Jack Edwards' expectedly animated call of Patrice Bergeron's Game 7 OT winner and find out what the Boston Bruins do with the point of the dagger at their throats.

• John Tortorella takes a shot at the fallen Capitals: "We’ve got everybody and their brother whining up there in Washington about what happened in that series, and I think that’s a big reason why they lose that series. [NY Daily News]

• Thomas Boswell rips the Washington Capitals something fierce. "When you have a star who was made captain not because he deserved it but in the hopes that it would prod him to get in better shape, cut down his carousing and show some leadership, why be shocked when he scores fewer goals (one) in a first-round exit than Rangers fourth-liner Arron Asham?" [Washington Post]

• The NHL has officially announced the two outdoor regular-season games at Yankee Stadium next season. The Rangers will face the Devils on Sunday, January 26, and then the Islanders on Wednesday, January 29. The Rangers will be the visiting team for both games.

• Raffi Torres has been offered the in-person hearing option, which means the suspension could be longer than five games. [TSN]

• Teemu Selanne on how he'll make the decision to play or not next year: "It’s a commitment with training and dedication in the summertime. That’s when you have to be ready. Like I said before the good thing is, I don’t have to play. I only play because I want to play. That’s the motivation that players dream of. That’s why I take some time off. I want to start feeling either way. Do I really want to start pushing myself again? If I don’t have it, then I don’t play. That’s the best way to do it. After like six weeks, I’ll start thinking about whether I want to start working out. Your body and your mind start missing it, and then you know what’s the right decision. If you don’t get that, then it’s time to start doing something else." [Ducks]

• This is cruel. [Reddit]

• Mike Babcock is the worst trash-talker on the planet. “Chicago’s a great city. They’ve got great players. They’ve got five D who are flat-out great skaters. They’ve got a captain who’s a real good human being and a great leader. They’ve got lots of skill and good depth. They’re well-organized. The national anthem is fun. Good uniforms. They’ve got nice restaurants. It’s a good spot. We’ll have a good time. We got a lot of reasons to be excited about playing them.” [The Globe & Mail]

• Sure, you witnessed a collapse, Leafs fans, but you witnessed a collapse that only happens once in sixty lifetimes. Revel in the history. [MC79Hockey]

Like California? Like battles? If so, then, by golly, you're going to enjoy this playoff series between the San Jose Sharks and the Los Angeles Kings, the first time they've met since 2011.

Both clubs enter the second-round on four-game winning streaks, having breezed through first-round opponents that were supposed to give them a lot more trouble than they did. The Sharks swept the Vancouver Canucks. The Kings dropped the first two to the Blues, then found their bearings and won the next four.

In a way, the Sharks look a little like last year's Kings, after an underwhelming regular season and the way they metamorphosed into a juggernaut as soon as it ended. Suddenly, they're firing on all cylinders, and they look like a group that could win it all. But, on the flipside, this year's Kings look like last year's Kings too, since they're pretty much the same basic roster and they wear the same jersey and everything.

So who comes out ahead in the battle of California?

A disconsolate and soon-to-be-incredibly-hungry Bruins team leaves the ice after Game 6.

As if the Boston Bruins didn't have enough problems Sunday after dropping their second straight elimination game and allowing the Toronto Maple Leafs to force a Game 7 the following evening, a malfunction with their charter plane left them stranded in Toronto overnight.

It was a stressful situation, so the Bruins opted to do what pretty much anybody does when they're feeling stressed: eat a lot of food.

But finding a restaurant that would accommodate 50 men at about 11 p.m. on a Sunday night is no easy feat, and when Mississauga's Canyon Creek Chophouse agreed to stay open late the feed the bear, the club was understandably appreciative: two hours after opening their doors and hearts to the enemy club, four employees of the restaurant found themselves with tickets to Monday night's Game 7 in Boston.

The New York Rangers have managed just one goal in each of their three losses to the Washington Capitals in their first-round series, so it stood to reason that, with the club facing elimination in Game 6, scoring more than one goal was a big part of the game plan.

They weren't able to do it. They were, however, able to push the Capitals to a Game 7 nonetheless, as Henrik Lundqvist made 27 saves for his first shutout of Round 1 in a 1-0 victory.

The lone goal came off the stick of Derick Brassard, then off the glove of Capitals' defenceman Steve Olesky before finding its way past Braden Holtby.

It was hardly a pretty one, but not much in this game was pretty, except for Lundqvist.

Marian Hossa had a big night for the Chicago Blackhawks in their Game 5 victory over the Minnesota Wild on May 9, scoring twice as his club moved on to the second round. But as it turns out, his impact may have gone beyond that.

Hossa's second period goal, which was a big one, as it pushed the Hawks' lead to three, may have induced labour in one fan. Midway through the middle frame, Donna Lebano, eight months pregnant, started having contractions.

But the diehard Hawks fan wasn't going to miss an elimination game just to give birth to some baby.

"No way was I leaving," Lebano said in a statement. "We are a Hawks family. I had to see the end of the game."

And really, she gave birth to one of these things a year and a half ago. The Hawks haven't been to the second round since 2010. So, you know, priorities.

Out with her three sisters for a girls' night, Lebano ignored her contractions through the end of the second, the intermission, and the third period before being rushed to the hospital to give birth to her second child sometime around the handshake line. From ABC News:

Just hours later, she gave birth to a son, Owen Michael. Owen weighs 6 pounds, 5 ounces and is 19.5 inches long. Mom and baby are both doing fine- and already ready to cheer on the Hawks in the next playoff game.

"Owen is such a great baby, very patient. We're doing fantastic and we think of Owen as Hossa's hat trick. Two goals in a playoff game and a baby delivered moments after getting to the hospital is an epic hat trick," Lebano said.

I'm not so sure we can call that a hat trick. It seems like more of an assist to me. But either way, since Hossa picked up another one of those in the third, we'll call it a four-point night for the big Slovak. Way to deliver, guy.

"Nothing like an exciting Hawks game to induce labor,” one of Lebano's sisters told WGN. You heard her. Not acupuncture. Not pineapple. Not even sex. Nothing.

Follow Harrison Mooney on Twitter at @HarrisonMooney

"Thanks for being you, Nabby."

No. 1 Star: Brooks Orpik, Pittsburgh Penguins

He scored the series-winning goal in the 4-3 win, which is about all you need to do get a first star in my opinion. But if that's not enough, he also had an excellent game all-around, finishing a team-high plus-7 in even-strength Corsi (plus/minus for shots attempted) in a game where the Penguins were outshot 38-21.

No. 2 Star: Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins

Malkin drew criticism for his defensive play at times, but he also had two assists, creating both the Penguins' game-tying and game-winning goals. On the winner, he forced the Islanders to collapse to the net before feeding Tyler Kennedy, who had all the time in the world to set up Orpik. And on Martin's, he made the pass himself. Plus he headed this puck to himself: