Reality Checks

The Penguins are undoubtedly the future of the league, especially if they can keep the core together. (Read: Malone, Ryan; Gonchar, Sergei; Malkin, Evgeni; Staal, Jordan. Barring some miracle, Crosby and Fleury will play their entire careers there, and barring a similar miracle, Hossa will be gone after this season. Which sucks; aside from SC and MAF, Hossa has been their best player in the playoffs.) The Penguins are already the best team in the East, by a wide margin. It would have been fun to see them play Montreal, but they way they strolled through OTT, NYR, and PHI was IMPRESSIVE. This team is going to win a lot of games for a long time to come.

That having been said, Detroit is clearly the better team at this point. The scores for the last few games of the Finals have been close, and PIT has managed to prove that they deserve to be there. But most of the games have not been as close as the scores would indicate. Detroit is busting ass, whereas the PIT players appear tentative in what they're doing. On offense, they can't seem to get in deep, and loose pucks always seem to bounce right to a DET player who (not surprisingly) is standing in exactly the right spot. On defense, they seem to make swipes at the puck-carrier, or else stop driving on the carrier when the get within 10 feet.

I think it really comes down to two things. First, DET is head-and-shoulders smarter and more experienced than PIT. They (as a team and as players) are on the same page: they know exactly where they are, and where they're going. Part of this is more experienced players, and part of it is coaching. And part of it is playing in the Western Conference, playing regular-season games against quality teams. All in all, I expect the series to end tomorrow in Pittsburgh. I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'm right.

But the future is going to be fun to watch; I'm already excited about what the offseason is going to bring...