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For the first time since 1983-4, the Stanley Cup Finals features a rematch. The Detroit Red Wings (51-21-10, 112 Pts) are looking for an impressive fifth championship since 1996-7, while the Pittsburgh Penguins (45-28-9, 99 Pts) haven’t hoisted the 35 lb. trophy for nearly twenty years, since the team led by Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr repeated in 1990-1 and 1991-2. In the historic finals twenty-five years ago, when Gretzky, Messier and company knocked off the Islanders’ juggernaut, it heralded the coming of age of a group of future Hall Of Famers. Will this year be the same case for Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin?
Detroit Offense vs. Pittsburgh Defense
Detroit Offense GVT: +30.8 (Rank: 1st in NHL)
The Red Wings are not an octopus, they’re a hydra, with all of the quality weapons that they use to strike their opposition. No other team boasts six players of +10.0 or more offensive GVT (Pavel Datsyuk, Marian Hossa, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom, Johan Franzen and Brian Rafalski – see below) nor does any other team boast eight players of +8.0 or more offensive GVT (Jiri Hudler and Niklas Kronwall in addition to the players listed above). Consider that a team like the New York Rangers had no such players.
Pittsburgh Defense GVT: -0.8 (Rank: 18th in NHL)
While Pittsburgh has a middle-of-the-pack defensive ranking, they were able to concentrate their defensive specialists to great effect against a team like Carolina with limited scoring threats. The playoff run has not been a cakewalk for the Penguins, though; they already have had to face the likes of Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Simon Gagne, Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green – eight All-Star caliber offensive players of +13.0 GVT or more. Tyler Kennedy, Matt Cooke, Jordan Staal, Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill are clearly being utilized in such defensive roles, as they rank in the top 10 in quality of competition this postseason.
Pittsburgh Goaltending GVT: +1.6 (Rank 15th in NHL)
Make what you will of happy-go-lucky Marc-Andre Fleury. On the positive side of the ledger, at 24 years old, he’s already a veteran of 42 playoff games including last year’s finals, and he’s historically been a better playoff goalie (.916 save percentage) than a regular season goalie (.907 save percentage). On the negative side, while he makes some nifty acrobatic saves, a .906 save percentage indicates that he may be more fun to watch than effective.
Total GVT Difference: +28.4 Detroit Red Wings
Advantage: Detroit Red Wings
Pittsburgh Offense vs. Detroit Defense
Pittsburgh Offense GVT: +28.4 (Rank: 2nd in NHL)
Sidney Crosby (14 Goals, 14 Assists, 28 Points, +12 plus/minus) and Evgeni Malkin (12 Goals, 16 Assists, 28 Points, +3 plus/minus) are both playing out of their minds right now, putting up points at a 1.65 P/GP clip; both have had hat tricks in the playoffs for good measure. Other significant postseason contributors have been trade deadline acquisitions Bill Guerin (7 Goals, 7 Assists, 14 Points, +11 plus/minus) and Chris Kunitz (1 Goal, 11 Assists, 12 Points, +6 plus/minus), offseason acquisition Ruslan Fedotenko (6 Goals, 5 Assists, 11 Points, +6 plus/minus) and virtual acquisition Sergei Gonchar (2 Goals, 10 Assists, 12 Points, +3 plus/minus). Keep in mind that this team transformed from a borderline playoff team to an elite team at the end of the season through several of those additions. The GVT’s listed are for the entire season; Pittsburgh may be better than Detroit at even strength now.
Detroit Defense GVT: +15.1 (Rank: 3rd in NHL)
Yeah, the hydra plays defense too. The Red Wings have eight players of +3.0 defensive GVT or more (Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, Brian Rafalski, Marian Hossa, Johan Franzen, Tomas Holmstrom, Andreas Lilja and Henrik Zetterberg), the most of all teams except San Jose.
Detroit Goaltending GVT: -21.5 (Rank 27th in NHL)
For the horrendous regular season (-16.3 GVT and a league worst .887 save percentage) and all the subsequent bashing, Chris Osgood has pulled it together impressively, sporting a championship-caliber .925 save percentage to date – Though we’ll see what the final tally is after facing Crosby and Malkin. Ozzy still has a penchant to give up the ugly goal and can be a rebound machine. Luckily, he’s got an excellent defense helping clean up the latter. Osgood may well end up being a hero of the series –at least in the public eye– but it’s not out of the question to have a Ty Conklin (+4.4 GVT, .909 save percentage) sighting, depending on how the series goes.
Total GVT Difference: +24.0 Pittsburgh Penguins
Advantage: Pittsburgh Penguins
Legend:
RPM: Relative Plus/Minus
ValO: Offensive GVT
ValD: Defensive GVT
ValG: Goaltending GVT
TOT: Offensive and Defensive GVT combined
Player P GP G A PTS +/- RPM ValO ValD TOT
Pavel Datsyuk F 81 32 65 97 +34 +27.6 17.1 7.3 24.4
Nicklas Lidstrom D 78 16 43 59 +31 +23.2 10.9 9.8 20.7
Marian Hossa F 74 40 31 71 +27 +22.4 14.0 5.7 19.7
Brian Rafalski D 78 10 49 59 +17 +10.9 10.5 6.1 16.6
Henrik Zetterberg F 77 31 42 73 +13 +7.2 11.9 3.6 15.5
Johan Franzen F 71 34 25 59 +21 +16.3 10.6 4.6 15.2
Jiri Hudler F 82 23 34 57 +7 +3.9 8.6 2.3 10.9
Niklas Kronwall D 80 6 45 51 +2 -6.3 8.0 2.0 10.1
Tomas Holmstrom F 53 14 23 37 +18 +16.3 4.4 3.9 8.3
Valtteri Filppula F 80 12 28 40 +9 +3.4 3.4 2.4 5.8
Brett Lebda D 65 6 10 16 +9 +5.8 2.7 2.9 5.6
Mikael Samuelsson F 81 19 21 40 0 -3.0 3.4 1.0 4.4
Andreas Lilja D 60 2 11 13 +13 +6.6 0.2 3.8 4.0
Daniel Cleary F 74 14 26 40 0 -6.5 2.7 1.0 3.7
Jonathan Ericsson D 19 1 3 4 -1 -2.8 0.1 -0.1 0.0
Brad Stuart D 67 2 13 15 -3 -11.2 -0.4 -0.2 -0.6
Chris Chelios D 28 0 0 0 +1 -0.4 -1.1 0.5 -0.6
Tomas Kopecky F 79 6 13 19 -7 -10.5 -1.2 -0.5 -1.7
Derek Meech D 41 2 5 7 -12 -14.1 0.2 -2.6 -2.4
Darren Helm F 16 0 1 1 -7 -7.9 -1.6 -1.0 -2.6
Kirk Maltby F 78 5 6 11 -9 -12.0 -2.1 -0.9 -3.0
Kris Draper F 79 7 10 17 -13 -18.5 -2.0 -1.3 -3.3
Goalie GP GAA PCT ValG ValD TOT
Ty Conklin 37.4 2.51 0.909 3.6 0.8 4.4
Chris Osgood 44.4 3.09 0.887 -17.4 1.1 -16.3
Player P GP G A PTS +/- RPM ValO ValD TOT
Evgeni Malkin F 82 35 78 113 +17 +18.1 18.9 4.5 23.4
Sidney Crosby F 77 33 70 103 +3 +4.4 16.7 2.0 18.7
Ruslan Fedotenko F 65 16 23 39 +18 +14.4 6.0 3.3 9.3
Chris Kunitz F 82 23 30 53 +12 +12.6 5.9 3.4 9.3
Tyler Kennedy F 67 15 20 35 +15 +11.0 4.8 2.8 7.6
Jordan Staal F 82 22 27 49 +5 -1.1 5.2 2.4 7.6
Rob Scuderi D 81 1 15 16 +23 +13.3 0.0 6.4 6.4
Petr Sykora F 76 25 21 46 +3 +5.1 4.4 1.5 5.9
Sergei Gonchar D 25 6 13 19 +6 +7.2 2.8 2.6 5.4
Philippe Boucher D 25 3 3 6 +10 +9.1 0.1 3.2 3.3
Kris Letang D 74 10 23 33 -7 -11.2 3.7 -0.5 3.2
Matt Cooke F 76 13 18 31 +0 -6.4 2.1 0.7 2.8
Pascal Dupuis F 71 12 16 28 +1 -6.0 1.7 1.0 2.7
Miroslav Satan F 65 17 19 36 +3 +2.7 3.8 1.1 4.9
Bill Guerin F 78 21 27 48 -12 +1.6 3.6 1.0 4.6
Alex Goligoski D 45 6 14 20 +5 +5.2 2.3 2.3 4.6
Hal Gill D 62 2 8 10 +11 +4.0 -0.3 3.2 2.9
Brooks Orpik D 79 2 17 19 +10 -0.5 -0.2 2.7 2.5
Mark Eaton D 68 4 5 9 +3 -3.7 -0.4 1.4 1.0
Maxime Talbot F 75 12 10 22 -9 -15.6 -0.1 -0.6 -0.7
Craig Adams F 45 2 5 7 -3 -5.0 -0.7 -0.2 -0.9
Eric Godard F 71 2 2 4 -3 -4.0 -2.1 -0.2 -2.3
Goalie GP GAA PCT% ValG ValD TOT
Marc-Andre Fleury 60.7 2.67 0.912 11.6 -0.5 11.1
Mathieu Garon 17.0 3.12 0.894 -4.1 0.1 -4.0
Detroit Power Play vs. Pittsburgh Penalty Kill
Detroit Power Play Offense GVT: +23.1 (Rank: 1st in NHL)
Detroit’s excellent power play percentage has remained steady, going from 25.5% in the regular season to 25.7% through 16 playoffs games. Pittsburgh has slightly increased an already good penalty killing percentage, from 82.7% to 83.6%.
Pittsburgh Penalty Kill Defense GVT: +5.8 (Rank: 6th in NHL)
Winning draws is key on the man advantage, with about 1 in 15 faceoffs won resulting in a goal. The Red Wings’ regular season faceoff percentage of 55.1% was one of the best marks in recent memory, while the Penguins were mediocre at 49.1%. The teams have performed more similarly in the postseason, with Detroit still holding a 52.8% to 50.0% advantage.
Total GVT Difference: +12.3 Detroit Red Wings
Advantage: Detroit Red Wings
Pittsburgh Power Play vs. Detroit Penalty Kill
Pittsburgh Power Play Offense GVT: -6.2 (Rank: 20th in NHL)
Pittsburgh’s power play unit has improved their performance from a relatively poor 17.2% in the regular season to a reasonable 19.3% in the postseason.
Detroit Penalty Kill Defense GVT: -9.0 (Rank: 25th in NHL)
Detroit’s lackluster penalty killing unit has performed even worse in the postseason, falling from 78.3% to an abysmal 73.7%. It’s hard to believe that a team with the Red Wings’ quality blueliners and with active young forwards like Darren Helm could be this poor at preventing power play goals. If it’s not the defensemen or the forwards, who’s left to blame?
Detroit and Pittsburgh have been the two least penalized teams of the postseason on a PIM/game basis.
Total GVT Difference: +2.8 Pittsburgh Penguins
Advantage: Pittsburgh Penguins
Season Series Results
In last season’s finals, the Motor City Machine prevailed four games to two with a 17-10 goal differential. We shouldn’t completely discount what we learned last year, though we can learn from the Oilers and Islanders of 1982-3 to 1983-4 how much things can change from one year to the next.
This regular season, the teams split two games, with the intriguing result of each team winning on the others’ home ice. The November 11th contest was a barnburner, a 7-6 overtime victory for the Penguins at Joe Louis Arena, featuring a Jordan Staal hat trick, while Detroit shut out Pittsburgh 3-0 at The Igloo on February 8th.
Advantage: Detroit Red Wings
Injuries and Intangibles
An important element of Pittsburgh’s success has been the lack of major injuries – knock on wood. On the other hand, the injury bug has bitten Detroit with a vengeance.
The loss of either Pavel Datsyuk (+24.4 total GVT) or Nicklas Lidstrom (+20.7 total GVT) could be the difference in the series. Even diminished performance by either or both could be key; it is possible that Datsyuk’s puzzling lack of production may have its roots in injury. Add in any reduced performance by twenty minute defenseman Jonathan Ericsson, recovering from surgery for acute appendicitis, and Detroit could be significantly diminished.
If that wasn’t bad enough, throw in the fact that Detroit has just come through two very physical series, through their clashes with the dirty Ducks and the bruising Blackhawks. That punishment, coupled with the side effect of key players playing extra minutes to cover for the aforementioned injuries and starting the series with back-to-back games, and the Red Wings may have some very heavy legs by Game 3.
Advantage: Pittsburgh Penguins
Prediction
If the Red Wings are completely healthy, we have all the makings of a seven game series for the ages. Otherwise, with an ineffective Pavel Datsyuk or Nicklas Lidstrom, the Penguins could be hoisting the Stanley Cup on home ice by the end of Game 6.
Pittsburgh has the snipers to score on Osgood –Crosby, Malkin, Guerin, Fedotenko and Gonchar in particular– and the defensive specialists to at least slow down this postseason’s elite line of Johan Franzen, Henrik Zetterberg and Dan Cleary.
Remember, this is not the Pittsburgh Penguins of October through February. This is the Pittsburgh Penguins of March onwards, a team that can go toe to toe with the mighty Wings.
Sidney Crosby wins his first Conn Smythe Trophy.
Prediction: Pittsburgh Penguins In 7 Games
Timo Seppa is an author of Hockey Prospectus.
You can contact Timo by clicking here or click here to see Timo's other articles.
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