The first star of the last week of the NHL regular season is Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby. Second star is forward Eric Staal of Carolina, third another forward Nicklas Bäckström of Washington. Crosby put up twelve points in four games. In the last game against New York Islanders he scored two goals and with 51 tied Steven Stamkos of Tampa Bay for the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy awarded to the top goal scorer in the regular season.

Finnish SM-Liiga play off semifinal results - 2nd games: TPS Turku - Jyväskylä 2:1, series 1:1, Hämeenlinna - KalPa Kuopio 0:4, series 1:1.

It took only few hours after the end of the NHL regular season for the new Tampa Bay owner to start management "clean up". General manager Brian Lawton and head coach Rick Tocchet were let go. Vinnik stated that the team wants a clean start in order to become a world-class organization and thus they decided to fire both the GM and the head coach.

Czech player Dusan Frosch is changing teams within the German league. The 28-year old forward will not be back with Kölner Haie of Cologne where came to last year from Straubing. His next team will be Nuremberg where he will join American Jeff Likens, who's currently playing for Ausburg and trying to get to the DEL finals.

Petri Vehanen of Kazan was announced as the best goalie of the KHL conference finals. His teammate Ilya Nikulin was voted the best defenceman. The best forward was Alexei Cvetkov of Balashikha, who had seven points (2 goals & 5 assists) in seven games in the series against Yaroslavl.

Only couple days after the expiration of his national team suspension, Eisbären Berlin forward Florian Busch has been added to the national team roster by the German national team Uwe Krupp. Krup stated that there was no doubt about Busch's place on the national team as he's one of the best German forward. Busch was suspended from the national team during a doping scandal which dates back to March 2008. For the last couple of years he's been going through appeals with German and Swiss courts and was finally granted his appeal in December 2009 and was eligible to return to the national team on April 9.

Forward Keith Aucoin of the Hersey Bears was announced as the AHL regular season most valuable player. He was also the most productive player of the league for which he won the John Sollenberger Trophy. His teammate Alexandre Giroux was the top scorer with 50 goals.

Brian Burke will be the US national team general manager at the upcoming World Championships in Germany, the same function he had at the Vancouver Olympics. According to ESPN the head coach will be Scott Gordon of New York Islanders, Todd Richards from Minnesota will be his assistant.

Canadian forward Joey Tenute is leaving Frankfurt after only one season for a different team within the German hockey league. He recently agreed to terms with Hamburg, where he signed a one-year contract. This season the former Washington Capital played in 53 regular season games (15 goals & 30 assists), and four play off games (1 assist).

The most productive player of the regular season of the German DEL Jeff Ulmer will stay in Frankfurt, where he returned last summer after a season spent in three different European leagues. The 33-year old former New York Ranger signed a new two year contract with Frankfurt which made it to the DEL play off quarterfinals. Ulmer scored 37 goals and added the same amount of assists in 56 regular season games, in play offs he scored two goals in four games.

Pairings for the first round of the NHL Stanley Cup play offs: Washington - Montreal, New Jersey - Philadelphia, Buffalo - Boston, Pittsburgh - Ottawa, San Jose - Colorado, Chicago - Nashville, Vancouver - Los Angeles, Phoenix - Detroit.