det v. pit: why i hate sundays, tuesdays, thursdays & fridays

i don't, currently, have a whole lot to say about the impending stanley cup final that every other pundit hasn't already said. i'm entirely excited about the expected calibre of hockey we'll be exposed to in the next weeks. bring it on....

here's a breakdown of what i expect:

the wings swung through the northeast division this season, and the southeast teams all stopped in for a night at the joe. meanwhile, the pens travelled through the northwest, and played host to the pacific teams. my point ? the stanely cup finalists have never met each other, boasting their current rosters, and can't possibly know quite what to expect from each other in an actual game setting. i would think the redwings will have a slight edge in experience (players, scouting, and coaching) but the pens are younger and hungrier... this could also work against them....

if i was putting a team together, i'd take holmstrom-datsyuk-zetterberg over hossa-crosby-dupuis. but only just...
without franzen, i think pittsburgh's second line (malkin-sykora-malone) beats detroit's (cleary-hudler-filppula), but if you factor in the double shifting of datsyuk or hossa, as their respective coaches seem to do on occasion, secondary scoring pretty much evens out. detroit's special teams don't differ much from their ES lineup, but the malkin-crosby-hossa powerplay unit is deadly, and can be united at 5-on-5 in a dire situation (ie: down a goal). detroit's grind line is superior, but jordan staal is on a tear, and could easily elevate his teammates to the level of maltby & draper (and then some, i'd think).... oh, and laraque v. mccarty would be a good fight.

this is a pretty even matchup, if you ask me.

on the blueline, babcock has a clear hierarchy: lidstrom plays a hell of a lot, rafalski plays almost as much, kronwall and stuart play around 20 minutes, and the bottom two guys (any two of lebda, lilja, or chelios) clock in at about 10. the penguins defense all play in the neighbourhood of twenty minutes a night and it seems to me that therrien likes to run letang-whitney behind the crosby line. i like the look of the redwings, here, though an injury to a top four guy could be a death blow...

as for osgood v. fleury, it's essentially a coin toss. fleury seems stronger positionally but i would not be surprised in the least to see him crumble after letting in a bad goal or a couple of fast, pretty ones by datsyuk and z'berg. ozzie's been to the big dance before (and won), so he knows what to expect. if either goes out injured, you might as well start fitting the red machine for cup rings...

what it might come down to is all of the intangibles, and i would think that the redwings have a huge advantage in this capacity: home ice at the joe louis ? ability to grow playoff beards ? i mean... wow. mostly, though, i think that the penguins have cruised through the playoffs on totally lopsided eastern conference matchups (ottawa, NYR, philly), while the wings have faced some hard hitting, if not high-scoring, western conference teams (nashville, colorado, dallas). i would expect the wings to come out with guns blazing, not letting up until a bruised group of penguins concede the cup....

maggie will presumeably weigh in on friday.
;)