NHL Playoffs 2012: Friday Night's 3 Stars

After a trio of overtime games on Thursday night, there was almost a trio of hat tricks on Friday night.

The Philadelphia Flyers took a commanding 2-0 lead over their archrival, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and they've never relinquished that kind of a lead, so they're feeling pretty good about themselves.

Meanwhile, on the other coast, the Los Angeles Kings shocked the world yet again. They dominated the special-teams matchup and are heading to the Staples Center with a 2-0 series lead against the No. 1-seeded Vancouver Canucks.

The Florida Panthers also played in their first playoff game since 2000, but lost after a valiant comeback effort.

Finally, the Detroit Red Wings evened the series against the Nashville Predators in a hard-fought win.

Before we reveal our three stars for Friday night, here are some honorable mentions.

Florida Panthers fans: They waited long enough and showed up in full force for the first home playoff game since 2000. Despite being silenced early when the New Jersey Devils took a 3-0 lead, the fans stayed positive and almost helped their Panthers rally back to victory.

Johan Franzen: The Red Wings' forward scored a huge insurance goal in the second period, which turned out to be the difference in the game.

Patrik Elias: Old Faithful scored the first goal of the series for the New Jersey Devils in the veteran's return to the playoffs after missing out last season.

Ilya Bryzgalov: Despite allowing five goals, Bryzgalov made timely saves to give the Flyers the momentum and jolt of confidence to defeat the Penguins.

Jonathan Quick: If we had a fourth star to give, Quick would get it. He was a stone wall in the Kings' victory over the Canucks, making 46 saves on 48 shots. He survived an onslaught late in the third period, too. There's no doubt that the Kings wouldn't even be in the playoffs if it weren't for him. 

Third Star: Dustin Brown

Remember the Los Angeles Kings struggled putting pucks into the back of the net during the regular season?

Seems like that problem has been solved.

The Kings have scored eight goals in the last two games and now have a surprising 2-0 lead heading back to Southern California. 

Dustin Brown has scored four of those eight goals, recording a hat trick on Friday night to silence the crowd at Rogers Arena. Two of Brown's three goals came shorthanded. It's interesting how the Kings weren't able to buy goals all season, but they scored two when they were down a man against one of the best teams in hockey.

Brown's performance in the series is a huge reason why the Kings have a 2-0 lead, and he must continue his dominance when the series shifts to L.A.

UPDATE: Brown's third goal was not credited to him, thus, no hat trick for Dustin Brown. 

Second Star: Claude Giroux

Claude Giroux scored three goals in three different ways, and boy, were his goals clutch.

The Philadelphia Flyers were down, 3-1, when Giroux scored a power-play goal to cut the deficit in half. Then, he added a short-handed goal to even up the game and give the Flyers a boost of energy, which would help them come back and win the game.

With the game sealed, Giroux added an exclamation point to the night with an empty-net goal for the hat trick. 

Giroux also added three assists to make it six points on a historic night for the Flyers. 

First Star: Sean Couturier

Sean Couturier was larger than life on Friday night.

His first goal came in the dying seconds of the second period and gave the Flyers some momentum heading into the intermission.

After the Flyers seemingly lost that momentum on a Tyler Kennedy goal early in the third, Couturier responded almost immediately with a goal of his own to even up the score at 5-5. 

Couturier added an insurance goal late in the third, when the Penguins still had a shot to tie the game. It was the nail in the coffin.

Couturier wasn't just a factor offensively, though. He completely shut down Evgeni Malkin for the second consecutive game. The scoring champion only has two points in the series, and it's because of Couturier's Velcro-like defense.

His defensive contributions are probably more important to the team because the Flyers have had trouble stopping other Penguins forwards in the series. However, they've kept their most lethal weapon silent thus far.