Pre-Playoff Stats

The Penguins are 2-5 against the Red Wings since 2000.  This is no doubt a troubling number by speculation, but the keener eye will pay notice to the years between 2000 and 2008 and, well, the composition of the team during those years.

Stros Bro. has posted an excellent fan post with a comparative approach to the teams' stats heading into this series.  Give it a look at the right side of the screen, and while you're at it try posting one of your own.  I know the new site may still seem a bit intimidating, but don't shy away from trying sample posts, pictures, quotes - WHATEVER.

Drag, I went off-topic.  Sorry, kind of easy to do when you're pumped about the new site. 

The best part about this Stanley Cup series, I feel, is embodied in the unknown.  Numbers on paper can only say so much.  This truly is a match between the best of the best from both sides of the league.  You have premiere scorers, Hall of Fame goaltenders, up and coming Hall of Famers, vets looking for that one last cup and a handful of guys who may be in their final season with either team.  The root of competition just doesn't get any better than that.

I'm reading a lot of seven game predictions.  Tons of people are saying this series will go to seven, with no expectancy of a sweep in sight.  That's as much a compliment to both teams as it is an insult. 

I'd imagine this roots from the paper stat of home-ice advantage.  Both teams have benefited in such a position, whereby the Pens are 8-0 at Mellon at the Wings are 7-1 at the Joe.

No matter what the 'experts' might say, you have to think this couldn't possibly be choreographed so well to a point where it will end with a Game 7 win by Detroit at the JLA.  Two for the Wings, two for the Pens, one each and then the win for Detroit?  That just seems too...lame.

At best I caught maybe four Red Wings games this year.  I can honestly say, without pretending to know something I don't, that I hardly can vouch for anything on the Detroit crew.  However, from what I've seen and read these guys are no joke.  Over the years I've seen Hasek and Osgood, Chelios and Lidstrom; so I know what kind of punch they have.  Within the last two years I've noticed guys like Zett and Datsyuk, and more recently Franzen.  But again, I can hardly speak as an expert.

So as the week wears on and we edge closer to Saturday, I'll do my best to find the guys who CAN speak as experts; some insiders if you will.  Check out Winging it in Motown, a fellow SBN blog, for a Detroit perspective.  And, as usual, keep checking back for updates.

All in all I can say the anxiety in this series stems from the lack of knowing.  Somehow, in a weird combination of irony and anticipation, that's what makes it all the more exciting.