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The Blackhawks and Kings gave us some of the best hockey we've ever seen -and no, that's not an exaggeration - in overtime of Game 5 on Wednesday night.

At the start of overtime Wednesday night, my hockey-illiterate roommate came home and sat down on the living room couch.

"How are the playoffs going?" he asked. I probably didn't have to answer him, because the TV was about to do the talking for me. But I explained how the Kings came back from 0-3 down in Round 1, and how theBlackhawks are the defending champs, and how crazy Game 5 that night had been to that point. It was a quick 30-second primer, because overtime was about to start.

And man, did he sit on that couch at the right time. For the next 26 minutes, from 9:57 p.m. Chicago time to 10:23 p.m., the Blackhawks and Kings went up and down and back and forth in what was definitely the most exciting period of NHL hockey in these playoffs. It might have been the best ever, period.

The pace was simply incredible, as evidenced by the fact that they played a 20 minute period in just 26 minutes. I'm not sure if that's a record, but it's gotta be close.

Patrick Kane agrees.

"I thought it was an unbelievable period," Kane said. "Up and back the whole period. A lot of chances. I think we probably had more chances than they did in overtime, but a lot of times you thought the game was over, especially for us.

"So it was a really fun period to play in. I know they clean the ice there at 10 minutes -- I don't think they ended up cleaning it till like 3:50 or something on the clock. Not a lot of whistles. Just up and back. It was a fun period of happy.

A fun period of happy. Pretty astute, Kaner. Joel Quenneville echoed it:

"I've seen a lot of games, been involved in a lot of games," Quenneville said. "That might have been the greatest overtime I've seen. When they had the whistle there, basically the timeout in the first overtime there, I don't know how many minutes and seconds, but it was just like it was a 'wow' factor.

"I think I appreciated it. The guys were working. The pace was unbelievable. It was good action. I guess maybe had a little appreciation when there was a stoppage in play."

That timeout for ice cleaning both men referenced came with 3:23 remaining in the overtime period. Prior to that whistle, the teams had played without stop for 7 minutes, 53 seconds. There were 11 shot attempts by the Kings in that span and seven by the Blackhawks. There were six hits and two takeaways registered, one for each team.

Here are a few clips tossed together from that stretch. Take these seconds and imagine that intensity for nearly a half hour straight, and you'll get a sense for what watching this OT was like.