Finals Matched Up

Well, here we are. Eagerly anticipating the beginning of the Stanley Cup Finals, which begin on Saturday night in Detroit. The much-hyped series between the grizzled veterans and the little rascals. It's certainly the marquee match-up the league was waiting for and it looks like the match-up the Playoff Pool was waiting for as well.

Detroit was the favoured team on the selection sheet in the West, one selection better than Anaheim and 16 better than San Jose. There was a great deal of faith in the President's Trophy winning team going into these playoffs, obviously. On the East side, only Montreal was favoured more than Pittsburgh and that was by a narrow seven selection margin.

The key match-up, more in the actual games than the playoff pool, is in goal, since they are going to be put in the crease with a giant target on their chests. Marc-Andre Fleury (Box 24) and Chris Osgood (non-pool) will have their hands and pads full of opposition shots through the entire series. Both Fleury and Osgood have only lost twice in these playoffs each, but only Fleury will count in the playoff pool. If Dominik Hasek (Box 12) was to magically appear in this series, then we might have ourselves a pool-worthy match-up.

As for match-ups in the pool, the top six teams in the standings, we'll have a look at the breakdown of which team has what players for the Finals. Angela goes into the Finals with a six-point lead over Benson at 223 points to 217. In Detroit, Benson has one more active Red Wing than Angela, which may prove to close the gap a little bit.

Player	Angela	Benson	John P.	Mike E.	Dale C.	Derek B.
Zetterberg	x	x	x	x		x
Datsyuk	x	x	x	x	x
Holmstrom				x	x
Hudler
Cleary
Samuelsson
Filppula
Lidstrom		x				x
Rafalski
Kronwall					x
Lebda
Hasek	x		x

Quite possibly the most impressive trio of Red Wings belongs to Mike E., who is the only one with the top three forwards, but sits ten points behind first place and only Tomas Holmstrom (Box 3) is the discrepancy.

The Penguins will have a full compliment of pool players going into Game 1 and the match-ups get a little bit more interesting. Between Angelan and Benson, there's only one player the same between the two and they each hold a different top 3 forward. Benson holding, arguably the better one in Evgeni Malkin (Box 14) over Marian Hossa (Box 15), while both John and Mike hold all three top forwards.

Player	Angela	Benson	John P.	Mike E.	Dale C.	Derek B.
Crosby			x	x
Malkin		x	x	x	x	x
Hossa	x		x	x		x
Sykora
Malone	x
Talbot
Staal
Gonchar	x	x				x
Whitney
Gill
Letang					x
Fleury		x			x

The race for third place could be an interesting one, as John only holds a two point lead on both Mike and Derek. Unfortunately, Derek's team doesn't seem to have the legs to carry him into the money, with only five players (period) and his match-ups are far less favourable than Mike's.

This race could finish up very well and the Sherpa is just glad it isn't just a one horse race going into the Finals. This should be an exciting finish.