Posted: 5/17/2009 by Brian LeBlanc
Both teams in this year's Eastern Conference finals can be forgiven for considering it old hat to get to this point. The Penguins, of course, defeated the Flyers last year in this round to advance to a six-game loss to Detroit in the Stanley Cup final. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes make their third appearance in this round in franchise history, and all three of those appearances have come in the last seven seasons ('02, '06 and now '09; there were no '05 playoffs due to the lockout).
Beyond that, though, the similarities quickly dwindle. The Canes still have ten holdovers from their 2006 Stanley Cup-winning team, while the Penguins only have five who have hoisted the chalice (including one, Craig Adams, who was on the '06 Canes). The moves made by GM Ray Shero in the regular season, acquiring Chris Kunitz and Bill Guerin at the trade deadline, were geared toward adding some playoff experience to a locker room that had gotten a taste of hockey at the highest level last year but was run over by an experienced Red Wings squad in the final.
The teams have never met in the playoffs, so unlike a series against New Jersey (and, to a lesser extent, Boston), the Canes don't have a long playoff rivalry against the Penguins. The regular season, however, is another story.
Who will move on to play for the Stanley Cup?
When Carolina has the puck: Expect plenty of Staals on the ice. There are only two in this series, the Canes' Eric and his younger brother, the Pens' Jordan, but the matchup between the two will be the top priority for Penguins coach Dan Bylsma. Not just because it drives media types crazy to have to specify which Staal they're speaking of, but Jordan has carved out a niche of defensive responsibility in playing against the opposition's top center, much like Boston's Patrice Bergeron, who shadowed Eric in the second round.
Outside of that matchup, the Canes simply must spread the scoring around. Of the sixteen goals that the Canes scored in the second round, three players -- Staal, Sergei Samsonov and Jussi Jokinen -- totaled eleven of them, and on the rest of the roster, only Matt Cullen had more than one. Erik Cole's been on a milk carton all playoffs long, still waiting for his first goal, and the likes of Cole, Tuomo Ruutu, Ray Whitney, and even Jokinen (who didn't score after game 4 of the Boston series) will need to contribute to match the Penguins' deep offensive attack.
Pittsburgh's defense, like Carolina's, is rather anonymous but is better as a unit than their individual components would have you believe. Sure, they gave up eight goals to Alex Ovechkin, but you get the sense that they considered that the cost of doing business and that they needed to shut down the likes of Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin to isolate Ovechkin. Mission accomplished, although Backstrom did total eight points in the series. Keep an eye on Rob Scuderi, a second-pairing defenseman who did yeoman's work in checking Semin, holding him without a goal and sticking him with a -7 rating in the series.
As for Marc-Andre Fleury, the Penguins' young but experienced and talented goaltender, he has games where he looks like the reincarnation of Patrick Roy and he has games where he looks like Theo Fleury attempting to play goal. He is capable of stealing a game, but the Canes have faced two tougher goaltenders (including the odds-on favorite to win the Vezina Trophy) in the playoffs thus far. Fleury has a propensity to give up bad goals at crucial times, and the Canes will need to continue to drive hard to the net and make him feel uncomfortable. If it works against Tim Thomas and Martin Brodeur, it will work against Fleury.
When Pittsburgh has the puck: You might have heard of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. The top one-two punch in hockey gives the Penguins a chance in every game, and they're a nightmare for opposing defenses to plan against. Crosby leads all scorers in the playoffs with 21 points, and Malkin is third with 19 (to go with his Art Ross Trophy-winning total of 121 in the regular season). So far, no one has been able to stop them.
If, somehow, the Canes can slow down the two-headed monster, their chances improve markedly. No other player on the Penguins roster has more than ten points, and the only one to hit double digits, defenseman Sergei Gonchar, is playing hurt after a collision with Ovechkin in game 5 of their last series. The Canes' defense, especially the top two pairings of Gleason-Corvo and Pitkanen-Seidenberg, will have their hands full defending Crosby and Malkin, and how the Canes' defense reacts to the Penguins' top two lines might well be the key to the series.
That, of course, is dependent on Cam Ward continuing his stellar play. Ward has outdueled two of the best in the business so far this postseason, and he is clearly the best goaltender remaining in the postseason. On top of his success against the Devils and Bruins, Ward is 2-0 against the Penguins this season, including stopping a Malkin penalty shot in an overtime win over Pittsburgh on April 4th. Ward leads the NHL in save percentage among goalies still alive in the playoffs at .927, and he trails only Detroit's Chris Osgood in goals-against average. While the Penguins have the offensive edge, the Canes have the goaltending edge, and we've seen over and over again how hot goaltending can shut down offense.
When Carolina has the power play: The Canes' man advantage didn't exactly roar to life in the Boston series, but it wasn't nearly as impotent as it was against the Devils. Even though the Canes only went 3-for-19, their passing was much improved and they were a threat to score on almost every power play. Still, their 10.4% conversion rate is by far the worst among the four teams remaining, and they need to improve on that in this series. Fortunately for them, the Penguins' penalty kill is nothing to write home about, and at 81.6% the Canes will have a good opportunity to improve on special teams.
When Pittsburgh has the power play: As bad as the Canes' power play has been, their penalty kill has been stellar. They've killed 90.6% of opposition power plays so far this offseason, only yielding five power play goals despite giving up 54 chances. The success of the Pittsburgh power play can pretty much be determined by how effective Sergei Gonchar is; he missed over fifty games in the regular season and the Pens' man advantage was surprisingly pedestrian as a result, finishing 21st in the league. Still, even with Gonchar missing almost two full games in the semifinals against Washington, the Penguins managed a power play goal in all but one game of the seven-game series.
Other stuff: We've managed to get this far without mentioning the most interesting subplot in the series, the animosity between Cole and the man who broke his neck in 2006, Pittsburgh's Brooks Orpik. Obviously, neither player will take a bad penalty at this point in the season, but even though three years have passed Cole still has some nervous flashbacks to the day when he was nearly paralyzed at the hands of the Penguins' defenseman. Orpik will get his share of Bronx cheers in Raleigh, but with the disappointing playoffs that he's had Cole needs to step up his game and get his revenge on the scoresheet.
Among the final four teams in the playoffs, only Detroit didn't go through a midseason coaching change. Dan Bylsma took over for Michel Therrien in March and led his charges onto a torrid streak that rocketed them up the standings into fourth place in the conference.
As I said above, the Canes' defense could decide this series. The Penguins have the wheels to open the series up and create games full of odd-man rushes and high-speed scoring chances, and the Canes can't afford to get into a shootout. If they're going to win the series, they need to play responsible defense and not let the Penguins get away with dictating the pace of the games. The Canes can win games 3-2 against the Penguins; if they start getting into 6-4 games, that favors Pittsburgh. The Penguins will get their chances, but if the Canes can limit those chances and let Ward handle the rest, they will have a good chance to win the Eastern Conference and advance to the third Stanley Cup final in franchise history.
Prediction: Why not? Canes in 7.
(As for the Western finals, I know I'm writing this after the Red Wings won Game 1 this afternoon, but I still think that Nikolai Khabibulin is the better goaltender and the Blackhawks are playing with house money right now after making me look like a fool for thinking that Roberto Luongo would have their number in round two. The Hawks are a young team playing with a ton of confidence and are one of the few teams that can skate with the Red Wings, a combination that I think will serve them well. Even given today's result,
Blackhawks in 6.)