Brooks Orpik's best hits came in one shift

The best thing about video games is you can take a player and just go for it. No need to worry about the coach yelling at you on the bench for abandoning your position, or even for your own physical regard. Just nail people. In open ice. Along the boards. Seek and destroy.

Brooks Orpik did that once, but in real life. In no less than the third period of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It was 2008, the Sidney Crosby era Penguins' first trip to the biggest stage. Playing against the Detroit Red Wings, a veteran squad who knew how and expected to win, Pittsburgh was in tough. They dropped the first two games of the series in Detroit, and despite battling valiantly, didn't really even look like they belonged on the ice with the Red Wings, getting out-scored a combined 7-0.

Game 3, in Pittsburgh was the Pens chance to show the hockey world that they weren't going to roll over, and it wasn't going to be an easy or quick series for Detroit. Sidney Crosby scored a goal in the first period, and again in the second to give the Pens a 2-0 lead. The Red Wings answered with a Johan Frazen goal, before Adam Hall scored to give the Pens a 3-1 edge in the 3rd.

That was what brought us, simply, to the shift.

The Pens would hold on to win Game 3 3-2, and even though they'd lose the series this season, this game was really the turning point into turning the Penguins into a competitive team in the 2008 & 2009 Cup finals games against the Red Wings.

Sometimes there are shifts, and sometimes players just act like they're in a video game, throw caution to the wind and just decide to punish the other team.