Friday . . .

So . . . it happened Thursday night in Boston.
The Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens 5-4 in overtime.
The Bruins were happy because they won the game.
The Canadiens were happy because the loser point allowed them to clinch a playoff spot.
"We've had an up and down season but we kept it together tonight and stayed in the game," Montreal head coach Bob Gainey was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. "Our major objective was to get into the playoffs."
This is what the game of hockey has come to with its unhealthy system of rewarding failure in regular-season games.
But, hey, everyone goes home happy in these situations and maybe that’s what this world needs as it struggles through a recession.
To real hockey fans, though, the playoffs can’t get here fast enough. That’s when wins are wins and no one gets rewarded for losing. Just ask the Vancouver Giants.
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THE MacBETH REPORT: D Chris Heid (Spokane) signed a one-year contract with Augsburg (Germany DEL). Heid had one goal and five assists in 50 games with Krefeld (Germany DEL) this season. . . . D Chris Schmidt (Seattle) signed a one-year contract with Mannheim (Germany DEL). He had three goals and 14 assists in 51 games with Iserlohn (Germany DEL) this season.
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F Kyle Beach of the Lethbridge Hurricanes has signed an amateur tryout deal with the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs. They are the AHL affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks, who selected Beach in the first round (11th overall) of the 2008 NHL draft. The head coach of the IceHogs is none other than Bill Peters, who spent the previous couple of seasons with the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs, so will be quite familiar with Beach who played two-plus seasons with the Everett Silvertips before being moved to Lethbridge. . . . D Luca Sbisa of the Hurricanes has been assigned by the Philadelphia Flyers to the AHL’s Philadelphia Phantoms. Sbisa, the 19th pick in the NHL’s 2008 draft, played in 39 games with the Flyers to start the season before he was assigned to the Hurricanes.
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D Paul Postma of the Calgary Hitmen has signed a three-year contract with the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers. He was a seventh-round selection in the 2007 NHL draft while he was with the Swift Current Broncos. Postma led all WHL defencemen in goals (23), assists (61) and points (84). In fact, only two other defencemen had more points than Postma had assists.
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FRIDAY’S PLAYOFF GAMES: And then there were two left in the Eastern Conference. The Brandon Wheat Kings completed a sweep of the Medicine Hat Tigers, which means the Eastern Conference final will feature two teams that are a combined 16-0 in these playoffs. Something will have to give when the Wheat Kings and Hitmen open the conference final in Calgary. Dates have yet to be announced for that series. . . . Meanwhile, in the Western Conference, the Kelowna Rockets and Spokane Chiefs opened 3-2 series leads with victories. But while the Rockets beat the host Tri-City Americans 5-2, the Chiefs went into the fourth OT period before beating the host Vancouver Giants, 3-2.
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In Brandon, D Colby Robak scored three goals and set up two others – and who saw that coming? – as the Wheat Kings dumped the Medicine Hat Tigers, 6-2. . . . The Wheat Kings, who swept the Kootenay Ice in the first round, took out the Tigers in the minimum four games. . . . The Tigers scored first, when D Jace Coyle got his first at 2:16 of the opening period, and led 2-1 when LW Travis Dunstall got his first at 9:52. . . . Brandon tied it on a goal by F Scott Glennie and took its first lead on Robak’s first of the game at 19:33. Robak, who scored 13 goals in the regular season, added a second goal in the second period and a third on the PP in the final 20 minutes. . . . Robak now has 11 points in eight playoff games. . . . Brandon G Andrew Hayes stopped 19 shots to improve to 7-0. . . . Brandon was 2-for-4 on the PP; Medicine Hat was 0-for-4. . . . Brandon C Brayden Schenn had two assists, giving him points in each of the club’s eight playoff games. He has 15 points, including nine helpers. . . . Attendance was 5,417, which is more than a sellout. . . . This was the first time that Brandon had beaten Medicine Hat in a playoff series. The franchises had met four times previous, with the Tigers winning series in 1993 and 2004, and the Wheat Kings losing out in round-robin series in 1980 and 1984.
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In Kennewick, Wash., the Kelowna Rockets dumped the Tri-City Americans 5-2 to take a 3-2 lead in one Western Conference semifinal. . . . The Rockets can wrap it up at home on Sunday. . . . Kelowna LW Jamie Benn, with eight points in the previous two games, drew two assists as the Rockets won for the third straight time. . . . The Rockets had lost each of their previous nine games in the Toyota Center. . . . Kelowna G Mark Guggenberger stopped 24 shots. . . . The Americans were 0-for-7 on the PP; the Rockets were 1-for-4. . . . Attendance was 4,004. . . . Benn has at least one point in every WHL playoff game in which he has played, including seven last season. He has 22 points in nine games this season, which is tops in the WHL. . . . The Americans were without injured forwards Mitch Fadden and Jason Reese. Fadden suffered an arm injury in Game 4, while Reese is missing with a leg injury. Also missing was D Jarrett Toll, while D Brett Plouffe and F Spencer Asuchak, both of whom had been out with injuries, were back in the lineup. . . . The Rockets added F Shane McColgan, the 13th pick in the 2008 bantam draft, to their lineup and scratched F Spencer Main.
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In Vancouver, the Spokane Chiefs beat the Vancouver Giants 3-2 in the second-longest game in WHL history. . . . Spokane F Blake Gal scored the winner at 6:05 of the fourth OT period. It was his first WHL playoff goal. . . . His father Rick played five seasons (1979-84) in the WHL, all with the Lethbridge Broncos. . . . Game 6 will be played in Spokane on Sunday. . . . Spokane LW Drayson Bowman forced OT at 4:25 of the third period. That was his eighth goal of these playoffs. . . . Vancouver F Evander Kane, with his first goal of the series, got it started on the PP at 2:45 of the first period. . . . Spokane tied it on C Tyler Johnson’s PP goal at 9:20 of the first. . . . Vancouver went back out front on a PP goal by D Brett Regner at 13:21 of the first. . . . Spokane G Dustin Tokarski finished with 60 saves, six more than Vancouver’s Tyson Sexsmith. . . . Spokane was 1-for-5 on the PP; Vancouver was 2-for-6. . . . Attendance was 8,948. . . . The longest game in WHL history occurred on March 25, 2003, when the host Kootenay Ice beat the Kamloops Blazers 3-2 in a game that lasted 136 minutes 56 seconds. . . . The Chiefs and Giants are No. 2 at 126:05.