Let's open with a brief note of congratulations for those of you who predicted back at the start of April that two franchises notorious for their playoff failures would end up battling for the right to lift Lord Stanley's oversized chalice.
Indeed, it's worth briefly going over these two teams' recent history in the NHL postseason.
The Sharks missed the playoffs last year for the first time since 2002-03; in the 10 seasons between, they finished first in their division five times, but won a grand total of four Western Conference finals games. San Jose had never won the right to play for the Stanley Cup, and a third-place finish in the Pacific this year combined with a first-round matchup against the playoff-tuned Kings didn't create a lot of optimism.
For the Penguins' part, they entered the playoffs with rookie goalie Matt Murray filling in for long-time starter Marc-Andre Fleury, which actually turned out to be quite a boon – since coming away with a Stanley Cup despite a subpar .908 save mark in the 2008-09 playoffs, Fleury has been an almost wholly unmitigated disaster in the postseason, with the lone meaningful exception a terrific series last year against the Rangers in which he got no offensive support while Pittsburgh was bumped by its Metropolitan Division rival for the second straight season.
Yes, since the Penguins lifted the Cup in '09, it's been one thing or another standing in the way of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin & Co.,
Let's open with a brief note of congratulations for those of you who predicted back at the start of April that two franchises notorious for their playoff failures would end up battling for the right to lift Lord Stanley's oversized chalice.
Indeed, it's worth briefly going over these two teams' recent history in the NHL postseason.
The Sharks missed the playoffs last year for the first time since 2002-03; in the 10 seasons between, they finished first in their division five times, but won a grand total of four Western Conference finals games. San Jose had never won the right to play for the Stanley Cup, and a third-place finish in the Pacific this year combined with a first-round matchup against the playoff-tuned Kings didn't create a lot of optimism.
For the Penguins' part, they entered the playoffs with rookie goalie Matt Murray filling in for long-time starter Marc-Andre Fleury, which actually turned out to be quite a boon – since coming away with a Stanley Cup despite a subpar .908 save mark in the 2008-09 playoffs, Fleury has been an almost wholly unmitigated disaster in the postseason, with the lone meaningful exception a terrific series last year against the Rangers in which he got no offensive support while Pittsburgh was bumped by its Metropolitan Division rival for the second straight season.
Yes, since the Penguins lifted the Cup in '09, it's been one thing or another standing in the way of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin & Co., but now they're back in the Final for the first time since, while the Sharks have ridden young netminder Martin Jones and the offensive punch of Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski, Brent Burns and Joe Thornton to their first-ever Cup Final appearance.
Monday's Memorial Day will also memorialize Game 1 in Pittsburgh between these two teams as they embark on what should be a fast-paced competition for the biggest, shiniest, most coveted cup in all of sports.
Let's see who's got the edge going in.
Goaltending
Sharks: Martin Jones and James Reimer
Penguins: Matt Murray and Marc-Andre Fleury
Ultimately, most playoff teams live and die with their goaltending, so it's no surprise that both of these squads have received terrific play from their netminders, semi-unheralded though they may have been. Just 22 years old as of Wednesday, Murray has played only 13 regular-season NHL games, but his .930 save mark in that time foreshadowed what was to come; meanwhile, Jones busted out with a terrific regular season after two years as Jonathan Quick's understudy in Los Angeles, and the student did indeed beat the teacher en route to the Final. Their playoff stats are close, with Murray taking a slight edge in save percentage and Jones a slight edge in GAA because the Sharks' defense has been tighter. (We'll get to that soon.) Both are tall, lanky netminders who may ultimately be hurt by the NHL's updated goalie equipment rules, but hey – that's next year. This is now.
As far as the backups go, the Penguins can turn to Fleury if needed, but you have to think they're strongly prefer not to, considering what they've seen from him in the past as well as in his two playoff appearances this year; meanwhile, Reimer has been collecting his checks while sitting on the bench for nearly the entirety of the postseason, but showed well in limited action with San Jose after his midseason trade out of the Toronto gulag.
Advantage: Tie; Jones' greater body of experience is helpful, but Murray's been every bit as good without the experience to fall back on. A slight backup edge to San Jose, but whichever team starts rolling its backup is probably going to lose.
Defense
Sharks: Brent Burns-Paul Martin, Marc-Edouard Vlasic-Justin Braun, Brenden Dillon-Roman Polak
Penguins: Kris Letang-Brian Dumoulin, Olli Maatta-Ben Lovejoy, Ian Cole-Justin Schultz
As noted in the goalie section, the Sharks have played the tighter defense in these playoffs – in their 18 games, they're averaging 27.1 shots against, while the Penguins have played the same number of games and are allowing an average of 29.7 shots. It's not a huge difference, but every little bit counts.
The Sharks have also gotten a lot more out of their premier offensive defenseman, Brent Burns, than the Penguins have gotten out of his counterpart, Kris Letang. Just as he was in the regular season, Burns has been a dynamo in the playoffs, averaging more than a point per game with six goals and 14 assists. Meanwhile, Letang's productivity has come and gone, and he was awful in the seven-game series against Tampa, notching just two points to go with a minus-3 rating. Perhaps he tired himself out by raining shots and assists on the Rangers and Capitals. Either way, he has half as many points as Burns in the playoffs as a whole.
Neither of these teams is counting on the other five defensemen to create anything more than complementary offense, although Vlasic has served as an effective distributor for San Jose this year. But Martin and Braun are battle-tested blueliners, while Martin and Vlasic have shut down many an opposing forward in these playoffs and own a plus-23 rating between them. For Pittsburgh, Dumoulin has emerged as a guy who can be trusted with big minutes, which has been huge. However, with Maatta in and out of the lineup with injuries, Schultz still inconsistent defensively, and Lovejoy/Cole not offering much except a stay-at-home package (which hasn't prevented the team from giving up plenty of shots), this isn't a Penguins crew that has a lot of depth.
Advantage: Sharks.
Forwards
Top Sharks: Logan Couture, Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, Patrick Marleau, Tomas Hertl
Top Penguins: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Patric Hornqvist, Chris Kunitz
Obviously, no team gets this far without plenty of high-end talent up front, but some less-heralded names have been difference makers as well. Bryan Rust's team-leading plus-10 rating highlights the strong work he's been doing on Malkin's right wing, and the 24-year-old rookie's three goals in the final two games of the Eastern Conference finals helped put the Lightning away. Meanwhile, 23-year-old Conor Sheary's been seeing time alongside Crosby, and although his results haven't been as impressive, the stability these two youngsters have added in the top six has allowed the Pens to roll out a mind-blowing third line with Nick Bonino flanked by team-leading postseason scorer Phil Kessel and speedy, reliable complement Carl Hagelin.
The Sharks have gotten help from their depth guys too, as Joel Ward owns a surprising 11 playoff points, but they've mostly been letting their top two lines concentrate on doing damage. Couture and Pavelski (not to mention Burns) both have well more points than any Penguins player in this postseason, while Thornton has outscored both Crosby and Malkin, both of whom are operating at less than a point-per-game pace. Pavelski has certainly been playing the part of captain, leading the postseason in goals with 13. Hertl is coming off a strong series against St. Louis in which he put up three goals and two assists in five games, and the Sharks need the 22-year-old as well as Joonas Donskoi to keep generating offense so the Pens can't zero in on their stars.
Matthew Nieto (upper body) has been out lately, so the Sharks have been rolling veteran Dainius Zubrus in his place on their fourth unit. Neither team gets much offense from that line, as you'd expect, but it has to be said that the Sharks have gotten better defense from their bottom-sixers, while the Pens' fourth-liners have done a great job of maintaining an up-tempo pace while the stars rest on the bench.
It's Kessel who's been the biggest force for the Pens in these playoffs, and he enters the Final hot, having notched six goals and 10 points over the last nine games. I ought to note that he's a third-liner only in name, as Kessel sees huge power-play time and thus ends up with quite a lot more minutes than "top-six" guys like Rust and Sheary. His center, Bonino, was a huge boon for Pittsburgh while Malkin was injured late in the season, and he's continued to be highly productive in the postseason. The Penguins' ability to roll three deep with quality centers is not to be underrated.
You're probably noticing that I really haven't talked a lot about Malkin and Crosby yet, but we save the best for last, right? That said, Crosby in particular has hardly been the best – over the last 13 games, he has only three goals and seven points, including missing the scoresheet in three of the last four against Tampa. If he doesn't show up in the Final, the calculus will change in a hurry. Meanwhile, Malkin went through a six-game slump of his own in which he recorded exactly zero points, but has gone on a five-game point streak since.
Advantage: Penguins; it's hard to go against the offense the Sharks have put up throughout these playoffs, but the fact remains that the Pens can put three scoring lines out there and San Jose can't.
Tangible Intangibles
The Penguins have home-ice advantage, and the organization as a whole has to be feeling good after gaining cathartic wins against top teams and old playoff foes alike. The Sharks, meanwhile, have one day of extra rest and have trodden an easier road to the Cup Final – the Kings rolled over for them in the first round, and they didn't need to beat the top team in the NHL or last year's conference champs on their way. They also had a playoff spot on lock much earlier than the Penguins did, as they played in a weaker division and didn't have to overcome the adversity of early-season struggles.
It's hard to say which of those paths better prepares a team for the last series of the season, but highway miles do tend to be better for your car's longevity than city miles, if you know what I mean.
Advantage: Sharks?
Prediction
A hard-fought, TV-friendly Stanley Cup Final culminates in the Sharks winning the title for the first time in a six-game series – but I'll qualify that by saying that if the Penguins manage to get it to Game 7, you won't find me betting on them taking a home loss.
