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After three rounds, fourteen series, and eighty games, it all comes down to the same teams as 2008. It’s the first Stanley Cup Finals rematch since 1984, when Wayne Gretzky’s young and upshot Oilers earned payback against the dynasty from Long Island, knocking off Mike Bossy’s Islanders who had defeated them a year earlier. Please tell me I don’t have to really spell out the similarities between that series and this one.
The difference here is that, despite some older (and injured) Red Wings, they also have a plethora of young, dynamic players up front and on the backline, allowing them to boast a nearly unprecedented amount of depth. It’s rare in a salary cap, 30-team sport, that a team can lose both its best forward AND best defenseman and barely miss a beat. Such was the case in game 5 against Chicago, as both Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk missed the contest, yet the Wings prevailed. As I mentioned in my last preview for the Chicago series, the list of players that could be top liners on other NHL teams is a page long. The key, once again, is Chris Osgood. Ozzie is a goalie that has never stood out, yet he’s won two Cups as a starter and is 4 wins away from a third. Simply incredible. If he keeps playing at the level at which he has been, Pittsburgh will have a very difficult time.
On the flip side, Cam Ward had been compared to Osgood by many in the hockey world, and in the last series Pittsburgh simply abused the netminder – who has a Cup win of his own – to sweep Carolina. Both Detroit and Pittsburgh were severely tested in the conference semifinals and then breezed through the conference finals, which should – on paper – benefit the older Red Wings, but the confidence the Pens have gained by blowing out Washington in D.C. in game 7 and then steamrolling through the ‘Canes has this team at a confidence level they’ve never experienced. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin (who has nearly invisible against the Caps) have led this team to a second chance at what they couldn’t accomplish last year, and this year they have a better supporting cast around them.
These Stanley Cup Playoffs almost certainly peaked in the semifinal round, with all four series reaching six games and three hitting a game seven. After a dud of a conference finals round, this series should once again ratchet up the excitement. This series will pit the sport’s brightest, most marketable young star against an Original Six team that often times finds itself playing for an entire city – a city, mind you, that calls itself “HockeytownUSA.” Both teams have talent, neither team has a top five goaltender, and both have proven multiple times during this playoff season that they can handle whatever is thrown at them. In the end, only one team can claim the greatest trophy in all of sports. Back in 1984, Gretzky, Coffey, Messier, Kurri, and the rest of the greatest offensive team in NHL history claimed the championship from the old, aging Islanders’ dynasty. The league is hoping Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, Staal, and the rest of the gritty Penguins can rise to the pinnacle of the sport and claim Lord Stanley’s Cup.
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