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 return home for Game 3 will give the Ottawa Senators a little bit of a boost as they attempt get back into their second-round series with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but with a 3-0 hole looming, the club would no doubt welcome a boost to their boost.

It looks like they'll get one of those too. After undergoing surgery for a herniated disc in his back and missing the last four months, Jason Spezza has been medically cleared to play.

He'll be in the Senators' lineup for Game 3. (Double boost!)

"I'm excited to have a chance to play again," Spezza said. "I feel ready to play."

Where he'll play remains to be seen, but Spezza has practiced on the Senators' first line alongside frequent running mate Milan Michalek, so our educated guess would be there.

That makes sense. Down 0-2, the Senators really aren't in a position to ease him into the lineup. Still, the question is what sort of impact he'll be able to have in his first game in 4 months. There's a good chance he'll see a lot of Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, the latter of whom notched a hat trick in Game 2. These are matchups he needs to win, and that's a lot to ask of anyone, let alone a guy that's played just 5 games this season.

But it's not like Spezza's not capable of it. His last game with the Senators was versus these very Penguins, and while Ottawa lost the decision, 2-1, in a shootout, Spezza was a large part of the reason they came away from that one with a point, finishing well above water in his head-to-head matchups with both of the Penguins' star pivots, and assisting on Ottawa's game-tying goal.

Spezza played the majority of this game matched up with Evgeni Malkin, while Kyle Turris saw the Crosby matchup (as he has for Games 1 and 2, and I'd expect he will in Game 3, Crosby's hat trick notwithstanding).

But when Spezza didn't see Malkin, he saw Crosby, and despite playing the majority of the night versus two of the best centres in the Eastern Conference, Spezza finished the evening with an even-strength Corsi rate (plus/minus for shots attempted, basically) of plus-9. Crosby was a minus-9. Malkin was a minus-6.

Spezza, who is a much better two-way player now than he was the last time the Senators and the Penguins met in the playoffs, also won 11 of 16 faceoffs versus this duo in that game.

If the Senators can return a guy capable of winning these pivotal shifts, their chances of staging a comeback in this series increase exponentially. But after four months on the shelf, one wonders if Spezza can be the player he's capable of being right away.

Game 3 goes Sunday. It totally should have been Saturday, though, which is the 10-year anniversary of Spezza's original playoff debut. That would have been cool.

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

Getty ImagesNo. 1 Star: Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins

Crosby recorded his second career postseason hat trick during the Penguins' 4-3 win over the Ottawa Senators in Game 2. He tallied his first two goals during a three-goal opening period for the Penguins, then completed the trick early in the second period on the power play. Crosby is the fifth player in Penguins franchise history to reach 100 career points in the playoffs.

No. 2 Star: Paul Martin, Pittsburgh Penguins

Martin continued his stellar play assisting on a pair of goals to give him 15 points in his last 16 games. He's now on 9 points, good enough to be tied for fourth in playoff scoring.

No. 3 Star: Brenden Morrow, Pittsburgh Penguins

Morrow scored his first playoff goal since 2008 by deflecting a Paul Martin shot midway through the second period. That goal would stand as the game winner. Late in the game, as the Penguins were hanging on to their 4-3 lead and time running out, Morrow killed seconds deep in the Senators' zone by protecting the puck along the boards.