The 2015 National Hockey League Stanley Cup Final begins on Thursday morning (Australian AEST) and features the Chicago Blackhawks and the Tampa Bay Lightning battling in a best-of-seven series for the right to win the most famous trophy in hockey. As is often the case, there are stories galore. Here are some of the most compelling:
Brad Richards
Eleven years ago, 2004, the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup and one of the stars of the John Tortorella-coached team was Brad Richards, winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP. Fast-forward a decade and a bit, and Richards, married to an Australian, is on the other side, a grizzled NHL veteran who is playing well in limited minutes for the Blackhawks, and remains eminently capable of scoring big goals. A big Final for Richards will certainly grab headlines.
Tampa on the road
The Lightning weren’t great away from Amalie Arena during the regular season, going a paltry 18-16-7 but come playoff time, they’ve become the NHL’s version of Mad Max! You know, road warriors, and their 7-3 record (including their most recent win, a Game Seven triumph against the Rangers in Madison Square Garden, and two more before that) is formidable. If they can steal wins in Chicago, it sets up a massive series.
Old versus New
The Chicago Blackhawks are an Original Six franchise, with a giant fan base in a sports-mad city where they enjoy a huge media presence. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are as recognisable on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago as Jay Cutler or Derrick Rose. They’re genuine superstars, the latest gun players on a franchise that’s had it’s fair share over the years: Hull, Mikita, Roenick and Savard.
On the other hand, the Lightning come from Florida, where, for the most part, only those fans inside Amalie Arena on any given night are hugely concerned about what the team is doing – until Stanley Cup Final time, of course. On just about any other day, Steven Stamkos and Ben Bishop could walk down the main street of Tampa and barely be recognised. Florida is a state where it’s football first and, generally, daylight second.
It’ll be fascinating to see the battle between an Original Six franchise and one of Commissioner Gary Bettman’s expansion franchises. Chicago are well-established, both in terms of a winning culture and a huge presence in their home city, but it hasn’t always been easy going for the Lightning – marketing hockey in a warm-weather environment is a tough challenge – but a win this year gives them two Cups in eleven years, and should guarantee at least an uptick of support
Toews and Kane
The two are polar opposites away from the ice – Toews is known as Captain Serious in Chicago, and Kane is famous for his partying ways – but when the game is on, there’s scarcely a more formidable one-two punch in the entire NHL. Like Malkin and Crosby in Pittsburgh, Perry and Getzlaf in Anaheim or the Sedin brothers in Vancouver, these two have an innate sense of where the other is going to be, and what he is going to do.
The two Blackhawks superstars are in ominous form. Stopping the duo isn’t going to be easy for the Lightning, particularly Kane, who’s in the middle of a playoff run for the ages. Even if he isn’t scoring goals, he’s making a difference on the ice – he had assists on three of Chicago’s five goals in their Game 7 win over Anaheim on the weekend – and as good as he is, he only needs a slither of room to make something extraordinary happen. They don’t call him ‘show time’ for nothing.
Toews paved the way to the Game 7 Anaheim win by scoring two first-period goals, putting his team on his back and carrying them over the line, as all good captains are supposed to do in these high-stakes games. It’s his combination with Kane that makes me think Chicago will win the series. Teams have slowed them down at times this playoff season, but they’ve always found a way back. Tampa will have to be impeccable on the defensive end to have any chance.
The Triplets
The Ondrej Palat-Nikita Kucherov-Tyler Johnson line has been making headlines all playoffs for Tampa Bay, and giving opposition defencemen fits in the process. Even more so than Steven Stamkos, these guys hold the offensive key for Tampa.
Their production this series will be very interesting to watch, given that they probably haven’t faced as good a defensive corps as Chicago can put on the ice, with the likes of Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Odouya all eating up huge minutes for the Blackhawks. For mine, at least Hjalmarsson and possibly also Odouya are good enough to be starting defencemen elsewhere.
Yes, I know the Rangers have a good defensive unit – I said as much in recent posts – but the revelation that the best of that bunch, Ryan McDonagh, was playing with a broken foot for at least a few games, and therefore hampered, raises just a slight question mark. If Palat, Johnson and Kucherov go big here in this series, that says something about their combined abilities. The ‘Hawks, however, won’t make it easy. If this trio get going, Tampa can definitely win.
Ben Bishop
The Tampa goalie has two shutouts in his last three games, which is impressive, but less so is the fact that he’s also allowed five goals in a game three times in the last five. It’s either scorching hot or ice cold for the Denver, Colorado native, and I think he’s going to need to be the former rather than the latter for Tampa if the Lightning are going to have a realistic shot at corralling the Chicago offence.
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