No word this morning of any urgent legal paperwork relative to Game 2 tonight in the fast-boiling playoff series between the Penguins and the Ottawa Senators, even if a theoretical Protection From Abuse order suddenly being filed by Ottawa's Wade Redden against Ryan Whitney might have seemed almost prudent.

"I have a lot of respect for Wade Redden," Whitney said after practice yesterday, "but he punched Sid in the head. No matter who takes liberties, you have to respond."

As Game 1 whistled toward its edgy conclusion Wednesday night, Whitney's response was definitively hostile, taking Redden behind the net like a drunk into an alley, hammering his cranio-facial area with smart bombs, pulling the sweater over his head, and pummelling the respected Ottawa defenseman's upper torso until finally relenting upon the arrival of authorities.

It was only the second fight of Whitney's NHL career, the other coming in a Philadelphia donnybrook before the holidays, that one little more than a violent dance with Jeff Carter.

"That was a big fight all over the ice," Whitney said. "Colby [the since traded Armstrong] was going with [Philly's Scott] Hartnell, it was huge."

Whitney's readiness to go all fistic all of a sudden is a classical symptom of playoff fever, a spicy pathogen that invades nearly every postseason conflict in this NHL. You virtually can't avoid what the traditionalists call the "healthy dislike" teams generate by skating into each other every other night for two weeks, but you have to take your club's temperature often and react accordingly.

"You have to be able to take hits, too," said the Penguins' Jarkko Ruutu, a noted spice doctor. "You can't retaliate on everything. If you do, they'll abuse it."

Uh-huh. Once you're seen as unnecessarily cranky, the chances you can be goaded to the penalty box are mightily enhanced.

Still, among the already evident positions the Penguins likely will sustain in this postseason include that there will be no punching of Sidney Crosby in the head, much less any blunt force action to the high ankle area, and no poking the cage of Marc-Andre Fleury, and Whitney obligingly added Evgeni Malkin and Marian Hossa to the short list yesterday.

"Every game in a series is emotional," Whitney said. "And every game, the emotions get a little higher. By the fourth or fifth game, it's full blown hatred."

Such are the laws of nature. It is April, and again the smell of full blown hockey hatred is sweet as cherry blossoms.

Even as we're still hours from Game 2, there already has been enough activity after the whistle to provide a rich subtext for the remainder of this first round. After one whistle the other night, Ottawa forward Martin Lapointe turned around in the crease in front of Fleury and seemed to deliver a pointed directive.

"He said, uh, just something that I touched him or something," Fleury said yesterday, not volunteering much.

Did he say that you shouldn't do that anymore?

"Yeah, he said not to do that again."

But before Lapointe could fill out the cease and desist order, he was himself treated to an interactive screening of When Mad Max Attacks. Max Talbot jumped him ferociously enough to draw a roughing minor that imperiled Pittsburgh's 2-0 lead because it led to nearly a minute of a 5-on-3 Senators advantage.

Only some consistently brilliant penalty-killing kept the Penguins' temperature from lifting toward system failure, and not until Whitney's pretty assist on Malkin's give-and-go, and Geno's deft swipe that put a third puck behind Ottawa's Martin Gerber were things fully stabilized in the third period.

"I just put it at his feet," Whitney said. "He made a fantastic play."

While the Penguins can fulfill most offensive fantasies, given any latitude, Captain Crosby called for discipline after Game 1, and Dr. Ruutu again explained the application yesterday.

"It depends on the situation," Ruutu said. "When you get up on a team, obviously you want to stay out of the [penalty] box. It was pretty obvious that they wanted to initiate things, but you've got to think about what the right response is."

Yeah, you gotta watch that temperature.

"These things are always emotional, but right now I think we're calm," Ruutu said. "It's only one win. We've gotta get four and we're facing a very experienced playoff team. Ottawa's gonna come out hard."

Harder than on Wednesday, I'd imagine, but how could they avoid it?