These five players will go a long way to determining who will hoist the Stanley Cup.
More than 40 players – depending on injuries and lineup changes – will compete to have their name scratched on to the Stanley Cup over the next two weeks.
Every player, whether they play 20 minutes per game or just five, has a job to do.
Here are five players I’ll be keeping an eye on:
SIDNEY CROSBY: The Penguins captain, just 21, is in his fourth NHL season and also enjoying his third trip to the playoffs. It took Mario Lemieux, his boss, five years in Pittsburgh to make it to the post-season.
Yet while he has playoff experience and was instrumental in helping the Penguins make it to the final last year, it is a new and improved Sidney Crosby we have seen this year. Clearly there is a greater emphasis on scoring. Sid the Kid has 14 goals in 17 games this postseason compared to just six in 20 games a year ago.
It’s not as though Crosby has recently discovered a scoring touch he never had; that fact is he scored 66 goals in 62 games in his final year of junior with Rimouski.
But for some reason, since he graduated to the NHL, he has placed more importance on the pass than the shot. That has changed. Crosby has 63 shots in 17 games this season compared to 59 in 20 last year.
Crosby likes to park himself down low at the side of the crease where he has utilized his amazing hand-eye co-ordination to swat rebounds past helpless goaltenders.
What motivates Crosby?
Well, aside from living out his life-long dream of winning the Cup, it has always been important to him to be recognized as the greatest hockey player in the world. His place at the top of the hill came into question this season when Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin won the hearts of many hockey fans with his scoring exploits coupled with the fact Sid was out-scored by his own teammate, Evgeni Malkin.
And Sid was not among the finalists for the Hart Trophy this season. That stung!
A Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP would go a long way in re-establishing him as the best in the world.
MARIAN HOSSA: Talk about taking a gamble. Hossa turned down millions of dollars to stay with the Penguins, as well as other teams, last summer and instead bolted for the Red Wings, whom he felt gave him the best opportunity to win the Cup.
He rolled the dice on a one-year deal and we’ll know in a week or so if he was right.
Truth be told, joining the Red Wings wasn’t exactly a huge risk. The Wings best players are in their prime and if they are healthy, Hossa is merely along for the ride, not expected to lead the way as he was in Pittsburgh last year.
Hossa’s numbers were good this season – 40 goals and 71 points in 74 games, good for third best on the team – but not exceptional. It has been the same through the first three rounds of the playoffs – good (six goals and 12 points in 16 games, sixth best on the team) but again, not exceptional.
Maybe he truly is a support player.
That said, if Pavel Datsyuk’s injury prevents him from being at the top of his game in the final, Hossa would have to step up his game. Thus far he has only managed goals in Game 4 of each of Detroit’s first three series.
He played superbly in the series closer against Chicago, perhaps serving notice the best is yet to come.
MARC-ANDRE FLEURY: When it comes to goaltending in this series, I give the edge to Detroit and Chris Osgood. Say what you want about Osgood’s career, he has proven time and time again he knows what it takes to win at the most critical time of the season.
Fleury, on the other hand, is a work in progress. The first overall pick in the 2003 entry draft has shown signs of maturing into the championship goaltender many believe he can be, but he needs to win to cement his credibility. Or, at the very least, to play well enough to not be the reason why the Penguins don’t win.
The easygoing Fleury is now 24 and not just another young goaltender. Thus far he has played well for the Penguins, but now he’s up against a team that has scoring on all four lines.
Heck, the Red Wings trainers score more often than some team’s fourth-liners.
You get a sense Crosby and Malkin have their ‘A’ games going and anything less from Fleury spells back-to-back losses in the final for Pittsburgh.
DAN CLEARY: We all have our favourite players and I make no bones about the fact I think Detroit’s Dan Cleary is one of the best two-way performers in the NHL. After years of trying to find his niche, Cleary has settled in nicely as a significant role player who can slide up and down the depth chart at centre and do a remarkable job at whatever is being asked of him.
Even though he played last year’s playoffs with a broken jaw, Cleary gave everything he had in becoming the first Newfoundlander to bring the Cup home. This season, with a number of the Red Wings top scorers spinning their wheels on offence through the first three rounds, Cleary has stepped up to the plate scoring eight goals and 14 points in 16 games and leads the postseason with a plus-16 ranking.
For the record, his eight goals are as many as Pavel Datsyuk, Tomas Holmstrom, Valtteri Filppula and Jiri Hulder have scored combined.
He may be called upon to be more of a checker in the final, but if the other Red Wing stars continue to sputter, count on Cleary chipping in on offence when needed.
BILL GUERIN: They say playing for the New York Islanders is almost like being in the NHL.
Fortunately for 38-year-old veteran Bill Guerin, he was paroled from Long Island after nearly a two-year stretch and dealt to a Stanley Cup finalist at the trade deadline.
Guerin has made the most of what could be his final chance to win his second Cup. Through three rounds the right winger has amassed seven goals and 14 points, good for third on the Penguins. And if you watch the Penguins play, you can see there is an instant bond between he and Crosby that serves both well.
Way back in 1994-95 Guerin was a member of the championship New Jersey Devils squad and probably thought winning would become routine. More than 900 games later he has made it back to the final, older and wiser.
Guerin has supplied the Penguins with some much-needed secondary scoring, but beyond that he has supplied the kind of leadership that a 21-year-old captain simply cannot provide.