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Sizing up the Stanley Cup finalists
By Kevin Allen, USA TODAY
May 22, 2008
GOALTENDING
Chris Osgood: Brought back to Detroit in 2005-06 to be a backup, Osgood has reinvented himself. He's arguably playing better at 35 than he was at 25, primarily because he has tightened up his style and positioning. He's playing with his arms tucked closer to his body, and pucks don't leak through him. Osgood is 58-18-15 over the past three seasons, and he's the playoff leader with a 1.60 goals-against average.
Marc-Andre Fleury: When Fleury was sidelined with an ankle sprain earlier in the season, Ty Conklin became the starter and played impressively enough that it wasn't a given that Fleury would get his job back. As a No. 1 draft pick, Fleury had been handed the job. Now he had to fight to keep it, and Fleury has responded by showing the dominance expected from him when he was labeled as a franchise goalie. Fleury has a postseason-best .938 save percentage and three shutouts.
FIRST LINE
Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom: This could the NHL's best all-around line. Datsyuk might be the NHL's most dazzling puck-handler, and Zetterberg can protect and carry the puck as well as any other forward in the league. They are both finalists for the Selke Trophy as top defensive forward and are a combined plus 27 in these playoffs. They have both been better on the road than they have at home. All nine of Datsyuk's goals have been scored on the road, as have six of Zetterberg's 11 goals. Holmstrom's job is to scrap along the wall, and most important, to stand in front of the net and deflect pucks and screen the goalie. He has a keen ability to get his stick on the puck as it whizzes toward the net.
Sidney Crosby, Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis: Crosby's injury this season allowed most of the focus to be directed at Evgeni Malkin, but Crosby has been the best in the postseason. Even when he's not scoring, he's having an impact as a leader, a backchecker and a feisty competitor. He's carrying the flag with great zeal. It's almost an afterthought that he has 21 points in 14 games. Stuck with a reputation for not being a first-rate playoff producer, Hossa has responded by producing 19 points, including nine goals. He has been a two-way force. Dupuis is the unsung hero on the line; he's an exceptional skater with responsible defensive skills.
SECOND LINE
Johan Franzen, Valtteri Filppula and Mikael Samuelsson: Franzen's status is still unknown because he has had concussion-related headaches and missed five games in the Dallas series. Even with the missed time, he still leads the NHL in playoff goals with 12. With 27 goals in his last 27 games dating to the regular season, 6-3, 225-pound Franzen seems to be asserting himself as a star. If he can't play, Dan Cleary takes his spot on the No. 2 line. Occasionally Jiri Hudler, who has played well in the postseason, has also been given shifts on that line with Samuelsson moving down. Hudler is slick with the puck, Samuelsson has a big shot, and Cleary drives hard to the net. The constant is Finn Filppula, who can skate and distribute the puck.
Ryan Malone, Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora: In the second half of the season, Malkin dominated the NHL as if he were Mario Lemieux in his prime. He was spellbinding in the open ice and impossible to harness down low. A Pittsburgh native, Malone has been the subject of trade rumors his entire career. But this season he seems to have taken his game to a higher level. It's his job to do the dirty work and to score goals. GM Ray Shero's decision to sign Sykora is among his best moves. Sykora is the shooter on this line. He can find the corners of the net.
TOP FOUR DEFENSEMAN
Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski, Niklas Kronwall and Brad Stuart: Lidstrom is expected to win a sixth Norris Trophy, and he's probably among the top five defensemen to play the game. The signing of Rafalski to play with Lidstrom has probably improved the team more than any other move. His passing skill fits well into Detroit's offensive style, and he is challenging to beat one-on-one. He has exceptional instincts. Kronwall will be the team's No. 1 when Lidstrom retires. He's starting to show star qualities and, unlike Lidstrom, he's a scary bodychecker, Detroit's most punishing hitter since Vladimir Konstantinov. Stuart's addition at the trade deadline has given Detroit one more physical player. The Red Wings probably will try to re-sign him this summer.
Sergei Gonchar, Ryan Whitney, Hal Gill and Brooks Orpik: The Penguins believed Gonchar should have been a Norris Trophy finalist. He's the point man on their power play, and at home, he and Orpik play against the opponent's best line. The addition of Gill probably has helped the team as much as Hossa because Gill's long reach and big body makes him a premium penalty killer. Over the past three months, Orpik has taken his game to another level. Whitney's numbers were off this season, and he probably wasn't as effective as he was the previous season. But he's 6-4, 220, and he's getting the job done in the postseason. He's plus 8.
COACHING
Mike Babcock: Preparation is his strength. He usually has his team ready to play. He's tough on his players, but he gives his skilled players the license to do what they do best. He has adjusted his style since coming to Detroit, embracing the Red Wings' tradition of a puck-possession game. He has three consecutive 50-win seasons.
Michel Therrien: The start of this team's drive to the Finals didn't come when Crosby was drafted in 2005. It came Jan. 10, 2006, when Therrien lambasted his team after a one-sided loss to the Edmonton Oilers. He said he believed his team's goal was "to be the worst defensive team in the league." He suggested that half the team didn't care. Since then, there has been a consistent effort to be a hardworking, hard-checking team. The Penguins have improved defensively more than they have offensively.
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Penguins nearly left town last season, now they're in the Stanley Cup final
Canadian Press©
May 21, 2008
The Pittsburgh Penguins quickly sold out next week's two home games for the Stanley Cup final.
That will give them 66 sellouts in a row. How fitting indeed.
Mario Lemieux has done it all for this organization both on and off the ice and now as part-owner he's overseen one of the great on-ice, off-ice turnarounds in pro sports.
Last season, the future of the team was very much in doubt. A new arena deal was dragging and rumours of a move were constant.
"Yes, when I look back when I was hired in May of '06, maybe even halfway through our first year last season, and moving into our house," Penguins GM Ray Shero recalled Wednesday on a conference call. "I've told the story where my wife didn't go about buying drapes and curtains, not certain if we were going to be here for the second year, whether the team was going to be sold or moved.
"A lot of uncertainty."
Finally, in March 2007, the uncertainty ended when the Penguins negotiated a deal with government officials for a new arena, which begins construction this summer and should be open in time for the 2010-11 season. Penguins fans rejoiced last March, their team was saved. Just 14 months later, they're in the Stanley Cup final.
"It truly is amazing," Penguins CEO Ken Sawyer told The Canadian Press on Wednesday. "But it's really more than 14 months."
Back-to-back 58-point seasons in 2003-04 and 2005-06 were tough to stomach.
"We were rebuilding, going to the bottom of the standings, our ticket base was declining, and we didn't know if we'd have a new arena and what kind of draft picks we would have," said Sawyer, who spear-headed the arena efforts.
"Now we're sold out, we have great, great young players and a new arena about to start construction. It couldn't be better."
The Penguins sold out every single game this year for the first time in franchise history, just four years after averaging a league-low 11,877 in attendance.
"The town of Pittsburgh, I mean, it's a serious hockey town," said Shero. "This last couple years has rekindled I think what they had 16 years ago with Mario, Jagr, the great teams that won the Cups. They had some really good years. The fans are excited again. It's been a while. The fans are feeling it.
"We've been sold out for, I don't know, 60 some games in a row. You can't get tickets. It's a real hot thing, which is great."
The club actually had to cut off season-ticket sales at 13,500 to ensure some tickets would be available for mini-plans and single games.
"It would have been most unfortunate had the team left," said Sawyer. "I know for sure wherever we would have gone, we would have been sold out with the team we have. You look at the Quebec Nordiques going to Colorado and how that worked."
It was close. It could easily have been the Kansas City Penguins. The NHL nearly lost a good hockey market.
"We always believed that Pittsburgh was a terrific place for NHL hockey and that with strong ownership and a new arena, we were confident that the future would be and is bright," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in an e-mail Wednesday.
The players were able to relax once the arena deal got done. As much as they all said at the time it was out of their hands and they were focused on playing hockey, some of them clearly were playing attention to the saga. Especially Penguins winger Ryan Malone, a hometown product who group up watching Lemieux's championship teams of the early 1990s.
"When you heard all the rumours about we might be moving ... it would have been tough to leave such a good hockey town with the support we were receiving at the time," Malone said Wednesday on a conference call.
"I think deep down inside we knew we weren't really going anywhere. For some reason, people were dragging their feet, finally got the rink deal done. It would have been crazy to think at the end of this year we would be going somewhere else."
The new arena deal is huge. Mellon Arena is the oldest rink in the NHL and doesn't supply the necessary revenue streams to ice a great team. Sidney Crosby's US$43.5-million, five-year extension kicks in next season. Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury needs a new deal this summer. The entry-level deal of centre Evgeni Malkin expires after next season. It's going to cost money to keep Pittsburgh's young core together.
"In plain terms, we are going to be going to the cap (limit) with this team, very quickly," said Sawyer. "We need the revenue to be able to do that and to be on a good financial footing. This team has a long history of having problems off the ice. We want to be competitive on the ice and not have problems off the ice.
"So a new arena was essential, absolutely essential.
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