The Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins, last year’s Stanley Cup finalists, are making an absolute mockery of what is commonly referred to as the Stanley Cup hangover.
In recent years both the Cup winner and finalist have struggled mightily the following season, but the Red Wings and Penguins have played superbly in the early going.
Going into Monday, the Red Wings rank third overall and have the fewest number of regulation defeats – two – in the league. They have three and four games in hand on the two teams – No. 1 San Jose and No. 2 NY Rangers - ahead of them. The Penguins, meanwhile, are fourth overall with two games in hand on San Jose and three on the Rangers.
That doesn’t mean both Detroit and Pittsburgh won’t have a meltdown at some point this season. Remember that the Ottawa Senators stormed out of the gate with 14 wins in their first 15 games last season after losing in the final to the Anaheim Ducks the year before, but went into the toilet after that great start and still have not recovered.
That said, don’t you just get the feeling both Detroit and Pittsburgh are the real deal and neither team will take a drastic drop? It shouldn’t surprise you to know the Red Wings were the last team to win back-to-back Stanley Cups, doing it in 1997 and 1998, and they are determined to repeat this season.
The Red Wings have a couple of things going for them. For starters, coach Mike Babcock doesn’t believe in the Stanley Cup hangover and made it known to his players he would not accept a short off-season as an excuse for losing this year. Babcock told sportsnet.ca at the start of the year his Wings only had six fewer days off last summer than they did the summer before when they lost in the Western Conference championship series.
Also - and this often sounds naïve but is very important - their best players have indeed been their best players. Marian Hossa, signed in the off-season as an unrestricted free agent, leads the team with 10 goals and 23 points in 16 games. Pavel Datsyuk didn’t score a goal in his first seven games, but currently stands second in team scoring with five goals and 17 points. Henrik Zetterberg missed a couple of games early with an injury, but has 10 goals in 14 games and with eight goals in 11 games, monster winger Johan Franzen now has 36 goals in his past 43 games dating back to last season.
Brian Rafalski and Nicklas Lidstrom are holding down the fort on the blue line and Chris Osgood and Ty Conklin give Detroit a dependable tandem in net.
The Penguins, on the other hand, had the misfortune of opening the year without their top offensive defencemen in Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney. That has certainly affected the team’s power play, though it stands a respectable 13th with a 27.1 per cent success rate.
Nevertheless, the team does boast two of the best young players in the league in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, both of whom are hungry to prove last season’s trip to the final was no fluke. Crosby was slowed by nagging injuries, but has still managed six goals and 22 points in 17 games. Malkin, who slowed down considerably in the final last season, has looked sharp with a league-leading 30 points.
Newcomer Miroslav Satan, signed to replace Hossa, has been decent with eight goals and 15 points in 17 games.
The real good news for the Penguins is, after going goal-less in his first 11 games, third-year forward Jordan Staal came to life with seven goals in his past six games including a hat trick against the Red Wings Nov. 11. Staal slipped from 29 goals as a rookie two years ago to just 12 goals last season, but looks like he can once again be an impact player.
I am not certain I’d bet the farm that one of these two teams will win the Stanley Cup this season, but I certainly wouldn’t bet against them.
Other thoughts:
* Somebody in the Leafs organization had better get to rookie defenceman Luke Schenn and convince him to keep his gloves on. While I admire his willingness to fight, he is not physically ready yet to fight men. Fact of the matter is Schenn was not known as a fighter in junior and might be trying to be something he is not.
* So let me get this straight: the Tampa Bay Lightning hire a coach who hasn’t stood behind the bench in 14 years and when things don’t go well at the start of the season, they replace him with a guy who has never been a head coach at any level of hockey. Rick Tocchet might well turn out to be the coach of the year if is able to engineer a Lightning turnaround, but he has his work cut out for him.