chrisdetroit

Bulls***. You are selectively picking out stats to make your point and ignoring others. Malkin has 28 points and Crosby has 26, nobody else has more than 13. Yea there are 4 other guys that have 10 or more but Malkin and Crosby combined have 33.3% of the teams points. Nobody on the Wings has more than 19. Our top two scorers account for only 24% of the teams points. The Pens live and die for scoring by these 2 guys.

We won't know until we actually play the games. The Pens have more depth? I don't follow... You lost Whitney, Malone, Roberts, Ruutu, Sydor, Hall and Hossa and you added Guerin, Kunitz, Fedotenko, Cooke, Satan, Adams, Letang and Eaton. Do you think that the guys that you acquired are better than the guys you lost? Really? IMO none of those guys are close to losing just Hossa.

Yea we got demolished by the Devils. Do you remember that? It was in 1995 which was 14 years ago. I'm not sure how that is relevant. Very few of those guys will be playing this year. As far as the Yankees and d-backs, again I'm not sure what baseball has to do with it. Yes, anything is possible, but it works both ways. The Buffalo Bills lost in the superbowl 4 straight years. It is possible for the Pens to win the Cup but it just isn't likely. As far as last year being close, the Wings should have won it in 5, and if not for an unbelievable performance by Fleury in the first OT of game 5 when we outshot the Pens 13-2 we would have won it in 5. I'm obvoiusly not going to change your opinion - you seem to think it was close last year and that you have a chance this year despite what all the "experts" say. Fine. You are entitled to your opinion. All the hockey writers are going to say that the Wings are heavy favorites. If you want to believe otherwise, more power to you.

He meant that you have 2 god scorers regardless of line combinations. Malkin and Crosby combined have 33.3% of the Pens points. 33%! For referecne, our top 2 scorers only have 24% of our points.

Ok fine, Spin it any way that you want to make yourself feel better. It wasn't close but if you want to pick specific games and say those were close, well knock yourself out. Sure, the last 4 games were close, but by then the series was for all intents and puposes, over. As far as playing the "if" game, that's pretty silly. IF the puck had gone in game 6 it would have gone into OT IF the Pens would have won OT, there would be a game 7 and IF the Pens had won game 7 at Joe Louis, the Pens would have been champs. How 'bout this IF one of those 24 shots on goal that the Wings threw at Fleury had gone in during the 3 OT's of game 5, this would have ended in 5 games. In the first OT the shots were 13-2. But none of this means anything. It wasn't close last year and at least ON PAPER it won't be close this year. Now what the final result will be, we will have to wait and see.

Last year was close? You're kidding right? Lets recap: Game 1 4-0 Detroit Game 2 3-0 Detroit Game 3 3-2 Pens Game 4 2-1 Detroit Game 5 4-3 Pens (3 OT) Game 6 3-2 Detoit Total scoring 17-10 The Pens won 1 game in triple OT and the other by 1 goal. Pens were shut out twice and scored a total of 10 goals in 6 games for a 1.67 goals/game If you consider that close you really are kidding yourself. I agree though that the Pens are more mentally tough this year than last and their coaching is improved. Other than that they have not improved significantly and their defense has gotten worse.

Granted that Lids is irreplaceable but we are increadibly deep on young D-men. Like this kid Ericcson that is playing right now. We'll be ok. We always are. We have been to the playoffs 16 straight years despite losing Yzermann, Shanahan, Konstantinov, Fedorov, Hasek, Vernon, Hull. Robatille, etc. What are you going to do when Gonchar retires?...LOL

Babcock lost in game 7 to the Devils and the game was in Jersey. I'm not sure that qualifies as chocking. This quote says it all from Ross McKeon Once we get to the Pittsburgh-Detroit matchup, it’s not even as close as last year’s, which wasn’t as close as a six-game series might suggest. The Red Wings are just that much better. And nothing illustrates that point more than removing one of the Penguins’ top supporting players – veteran scorer Marian Hossa(notes) – and adding him to the Detroit roster. How unfair is that? You can read the entire article here for you enjoyment. But of course it's all meaningless. Just like it was last year. Yahoo Sports

Every single stat is meaningless? Come on you can do better than that. You can say one or 2 are meaningless but how can you dismiss all of them? Weren't you the guy crowing about the Pens offense which numbers show is dead even with the Wings? But now you are dismissing all of the numbers? hahahahah And how you think that Bylsma who has coached in 1/2 of a regular season and never in the NHL playoffs is as good as Babcock is laughable. This is Babcocks 3rd trip to the finals.

Let's look at this objectively. Offense - In the playoffs this year the Wings have 3.80 g/game and the Pens have 3.81. Dead even Defense - Wings have 2.00 GA/g and the Pens have 2.88. HUGE edge for the Wings 5 on 5 (for/against) - Wings 1.83 Pens 1.17 Huge edge Wings Powerplay - Wings 26.8% Pens 20.2% big edge Wings PK - Pens 82.5 Wings 72.2 Big edge Pens Shots/Game - Wings 39.1 Pens 35.6 small edge Wings Shots against/game - Wings 28.6 Pens 28.8 Even Face Off - Wings 52.7 Pens 50.0 small edge Wings Goaltending save % - Osgood .921 Fleury .902 edge Wings Experience - Big edge Wings Coaching - Big Edge Wings Home Ice - Wings Scoring Depth (percentage of teams point by top 5)- Wings 49.3, Pens 56.2 edge Wings Intangables - Hossa, Pens want revenge - even Opponents- Wings played a tough Aneheim and weak Columbus and Chicago, Pens played weak Flyers, Capitals and Canes - Edge Wings Injuries - Gonchar is playing hurt, Datsyuk sore foot, Lids ?, Draper out - Edge ? Conclusion - Pens only edge is in the PK WINGS IN 5

GImme a break. You sound like a troll.

If we lose today, I'll be disappointed because we would have blown a 2 game lead which means that it will go 6 games. Worried? no. If this comes down to best of 3 with 2 at the Joe, I'm confidant that we can still own the Hawks.

Because it is a foot injury. There is no way the other team can benefit from knowing that his foot is sore. What are they going to do with this info - try to hit him in the foot again? If it was a groin, leg, arm, shoulder or something like that they could target that but it's pretty hard to target a foot.

I don't agree with you on that. There were large portions of each of the 3 games that it looked like the Hawks were just standing around. In part of game 2 every time a Hawk touched the puck he got smothered. The Hawks have had moments when they outplayed the Wings but there have also been times when the Wings were absolutely dominant. I expect that most of todays game will feature domination by the Wings and a big win. You think Huet will step up? - I'm betting not....

This statement is a bit over the top. Are you telling me that Toews or Kane are not better than Abdelkader? Or Brett Lebda is better than any one of their D-men. I agree with most everything else you said but this is a bit of an exaggeration.

Aw, statistics, you can interpret them in many different ways. In the 7 years before last year, his combined pts/game is a only 0.64. That's not very good for a guy that you are paying 7.5M to score goals... I hate to say it but it's looking like last year was an exception. This year he is also at 0.64. I'm glad we didn't re-sign him at the expense of Hudler, Sammy and Flip....

Pittsburgh won't give us much trouble. The biggest difference with Pittsburgh from last year to this year is they don't have Hossa who played like a monster for them last year. None of the has-beens that they picked up are anywhere as good as Hossa was last year. The second biggest difference is the Fleury was great last year and not very good this year. Last year he had a .933 save % and a 1.97 GAA, this year he has .899 and 2.76. Pittsburgh is not going to win the Stanley Cup with a goaltender with an .899 save percentage against a team that averages 38 shots per game.

hahahahaha. You don't really believe that do you?

Well said. If last night was their best effort - a game in which they gave up 3 goals in a row in identical fasion, a game in which the refs made us play almost the entire game without our #3 d-man, a game in which we didn't play our Hart and Selke trophy nominee... And they pulled out a win in OT. Well, if that's the best they can do, they are in trouble.

Imagine what they are saying in the locker room. "guys, I know we had a 3-0 lead and they scored 3 straight goals but we can beat them, I know we can...I hope..." LOL

Huh? 0.899 is outstanding? Ok maybe he had 1 good game but 0.899 is not good

Fleury has an .899 save percentage in the playoffs and a 2.93 GAA. How he played in 1 game is irrelevant. Detroit is not going to lose to a goalie with that low a save percentage. Detroit averages 40.2 shots per game. That means on average, they will score (1-0.899) x 40.2 = 4.06 goals per game. That kind of goaltending/defense is not going to cut it. Ozzie has a .925 save % and a 2.04 GAA. For the pens to knock off Detroit, Fleury has to play MUCH better in the final 4 to seven games than he has played in the last 15 AND Ozzie has to play MUCH worse. Incidently Fleury had a .933 save percentage and a 1.97 GAA in last years playoffs and the Pens still got crushed by the Red Wings.

Talk about a homer. One of them was a high stick that was completely obvious. So as far as penalties that may or may not have been called, there was a total of 1. The other one was a "maybe". You should watch the games...

As it turns out, both Khabibulin and Fleury have identical 0.899 save percentages after last night's defensive gem that ended with a final 7-4 score. No team with a .899 save percentage is going to beat Detroit

Here's the deal. It's Hossa or Flip, Huds and Sammy. Which do you think is playing better half way through the playoffs? Obviously it's Flip, Huds and Sammy. Enjoy watching Hossa this year because he isn't outplaying the 3 guys combined and he is making Kenny's decision alot easier. Hossa had 1 good playof year in his career. I tried to tell everybody that last July but nobody wanted to listen especially the OMG Hossa contingent. I hope he picks it up but it's not looking good.