NHL analysis

As promised, here is my complete coverage/prediction for the Stanley Cup Final Series.  I’ll be abandoning the format I used for the first three rounds and just focusing on analysis, as these two teams played such vastly different opponents throughout the regular season direct comparison of stats don’t mean a whole heck of a lot.

Offence

The Senators roll four lines but rely on one, while the Ducks lean heavily on all three of their top lines while their fourth liners warm the bench.  It’s an interesting matchup because neither team features the really deep, balanced scoring like last year’s Stanley Cup Champions (the Hurricanes top three centremen last year were Brind’Amour, Staal and Weight).

The Senators have very successfully played solid playoff hockey, focusing on defence first and capitalizing on their power play and turnover opportunities.  The Ducks are strong, tough and physical on the forecheck, dominating down low and cycling very well.

I give the edge to the Ducks because if the Sens big line slows or gets slowed down, the Sens have almost nothing else to fall back on.  The Ducks have no one as dominant as Heatley, Alfredsson and Spezza have been, but they’re more consistent.

Defence

The Sens have the deeper blueline, while the Ducks have the best blueliners.  The Sens will rely heavily on Volchenkov and Phillips, but because of the balanced attack of the Ducks, they will also need Redden and Meszaros, and even Corvo and Preissing, to be effective at shutting down the opposition.  On the other hand, the Sens top line will in all likelihood never set foot on the ice without at least one of Niedermayer or Pronger opposing them.

The Ducks did better than I expected when Pronger was out of the lineup serving his one game suspension, and that bodes well for them because it shows they have more depth than most would give them credit for.  However, the burden still rests on Scott and Chris to essentially outplay two or three of Ottawa’s defencemen each.  As I believe they are up to the task, I give the Ducks the edge on the blueline.

Goal

Ray Emery has played very well, and will continue to give his team a chance to win every single night, but the edge has to go the Giguere here.  A 12-1 overtime playoff record says it all - JS has a proven record of showing up big when his team needs him most.

Prediction

Ducks in 7.  The seven game prediction may just be my desire to see as much hockey as possible before the season ends, but I do believe Ottawa will come out strong.  They have looked like a team on a mission since game 1 of the playoffs.  I just don’t think they have the depth to expose the thinness of the Ducks’ blueline or the toughness to do much damage when Pronger and Niedermayer are on the ice.

That being said, as a Canadian, I have to root for the Sens, even if it feels very, very wrong.

So the Stanley Cup Final matchup is set, and will begin Monday night in Anaheim.  For the record, my predictions are now at 10 for 14, and THREE of the picks I’ve been wrong on involved the Detroit Red Wings.  Ah well, at least this time they lost :).

I’ll have more a comprehensive coverage/prediction up later this week, but here’s a quick and dirty version:

I’m picking Anaheim in 7 games for the following reasons:

- J.S. Giguere: 12-1 career playoff OT record.  Starting to look like the single biggest fish on the free agent market this summer.

- Teemu Selanne: First Stanley Cup final appearance for a flashy, classy player.  He’s hungry, he’s playing great hockey and he’s a guy you can’t help but root for.

- Ryan Getzlaf: I rarely got to see this guy until the playoffs, as I don’t see many Western Conference games, but he is something special.

Now, Ottawa has played very well in the playoffs but I don’t think they’ve really been tested so far.  Pittsburgh was strong but young and folded pretty quickly, New Jersey bowed out with hardly a peep, and while Buffalo aught to have been a tough battle, they simply weren’t.  Anaheim also benefited from relatively easy opponents but they had a tougher time than the Senators.

The Senators certainly have some things going for them, of course.  Ray Emery is playing great and the team has full confidence in them.  They don’t have two Norris candidates on their blueline but they are much stronger in the 4-6 positions.  They are getting sufficient support from their second, third and fourth lines and their top line has been nothing short of dominant.

Should be fun to watch.

Battle of the big dogs in the West.  Anaheim’s not a surprise to me here but I must say Detroit is.  Of course, Detroit finished first in the Western Conference, missed winning the President’s Trophy by less than a single point, which is very much consistent with their success… well, seems like forever now.  Maybe I have to start giving them a little credit.

If nothing else, I’m tempted to pick the Wings if only because of the three series I’ve been wrong on so far this year, TWO have been picking the Wings to lose.

The Wings will continue to win if they can survive the loss of their number 2 defenceman (Schneider) and continue to play their solid defensive game - limit shots on Hasek, play patiently, make the most of the opportunities as they occur.  I also the Wings being successful if they can lengthen the series - the Ducks have only played 10 games so far in the playoffs and they rely heavily on 6 forwards and 4 defencemen.  Do they have the endurance to last in a long series against a difficult opponent?

The Ducks will win if they succeed where Calgary and San Jose failed - get bodies to the net and get Hasek off his game without taking penalties.  They have the luxury of keeping a Norris candidate on the ice twice as often as Detroit and both of their top two lines have performed very well so far this year.  If this series were starting in Anaheim I think I would pick the Ducks, but with home ice advantage lying with the Wings, Anaheim has an uphill battle to climb with their first serious test this summer.  They also need their core of young players, whom they rely on quite heavily, to play above their level of experience.

Home ice advantage and the unwillingness to be wrong picking Detroit to lose in three straight series has me giving this one to the Wings, but I suspect Anaheim will draw it out to the limit.

My prediction: Detroit in 7

Ah, the rematch from last year’s playoffs everyone’s been hoping for.  The Sabres have been involved in one easy and boring series versus the Islanders and one surprisingly tough and fun to watch series versus the Rangers, while the Senators mopped up the Penguins faster than almost anyone predicted then eliminated the Devils just as quickly.  The Sabres are the better team on paper and unlike the Sens, they’ve been receiving offence from all throughout their lineup, but we’ve yet to see the A game out of Buffalo, and that will need to change.  On the flip side, the Senators have been churning along due pretty much exclusively to their big guns.

The Sabres will win if their big names can pace the Spezza-Heatley-Alfredsson line, as it’s all but assured the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines will tilt heavily in favour of the Sabres.  Ryan Miller needs to be good but not necessarily perfect, since the Sabres are going to be just fine if these games turn into shootouts (shootouts as in high-scoring affairs, not actual shootouts).

The Senators need their role players to start performing and they need their top line to dominate, something that will not be easy, no matter who they’re matched up against.  They also need Ray Emery to steal a game or two.  Although the Sens are usually more than happy with high-scoring games, they need to be successful in keeping these games close and tight.  They also need to get off to a good start, because the Sabres so far have been something of a slumbering beast.  When they wake up…

I’ve gone back and forth on this one but I have to go with the Senators.  The Sabres just haven’t looked like the desperate, hungry hockey team that I’ve been looking for.  The Senators, on the other hand, have.  That being said, it’s likely to be a close series, and likely one of the most entertaining to watch, to boot.  The longer the series goes, the more in the air the outcome will be, because as I mentioned earlier, the Sabres still haven’t really woken up and when they do, lookout.

My prediction: Senators in 6