Some Thoughts On The Cup Finals

This year’s Stanley Cup finals went to a game seven, defining a razor’s edge difference between the winner and the loser. Only an overtime win could have shaved the outcome finer.

In the days since Crosby and Company hoisted the Cup for their Pittsburgh Penguins, I’ve been trying to understand why what appeared to be a superior hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings, hadn’t been able to do a reprise of the previous season’s series. I use the term “superior” in regard to the Wings because throughout the series, it seemed that in basic execution – breakout plays, passing, puck possession, puck protection – the Wings had the Pens scrambling. And yet…

The Pens pretty consistently out-shot the Wings, but most of those shots were low-percentage tries. The five-year average age gap between the two teams was cited with statements that the Detroit players looked tired. They never looked all that tired to me. And with the exception of the Wings 5-0 blowout of the Pens in Game Five, the series was marked by low-scoring, relatively close games. Over the series, Detroit actually outscored Pittsburgh 17-14.

Here’s what I think happened. In Games One, Two and Five, Detroit was able to play their Cup-winning system, effectively shutting down the Pens. Pittsburgh was out-skated, out-passed, smothered in the neutral zone and continually bottled-up in their own defensive zone. But in Games Three, Four, Six and Seven, Detroit’s allocation of resources, matching both Lidstrom and Zetterberg against Crosby, began to appear counterproductive. While Crosby was kept to a single goal in the series, Maxime Talbot was able to score three times, accounting for over twenty percent of Pittsburgh’s total scoring. For the series, less than half of Pittsburgh’s goals came from the starring triumvirate of Crosby, Malkin and Stall. It might be that Babcock’s emphasis on Crosby was what allowed journeyman players like Letang, Fedetenko and Kennedy to get under the Wing’s radar and score. It also might be argued that the Wings commitment to what had proven to be a winning system left them at a disadvantage against the more nimble and opportunistic Penguins.

Finally, goaltending – Chris Osgood is a competent NHL goaltender. That’s to say, he is a superb and gifted athlete, but his success as a Cup winner might have had more to do with the defensive skills of his teammates, and to the Mike Babcock defensive system, than to his being a true money goalie. Osgood made big saves, but he didn’t have to perform throughout the series at the same dazzling level required of Mark Andre Fleury.

It seems to me that on the whole, the Detroit Red Wings were a more accomplished and possibly a better hockey team than the Pittsburgh Penguins, but as two-time Cup winner Bill Clement once put it, the nature of the game is that a lesser team can beat a better team if they are willing to pay the price. The series certainly could have gone either way, but from what I saw, the entire Pittsburgh Penguins team stepped up and paid in full for their Stanley cup win.