Stanley Cup Finals, Game 7: Pittsburgh 2, Detroit 1

Well, yeah. So. Marc-Andre Fleury was not awful (actually, he was really good), Chris Osgood was not great, the Wings were not precise, the Pens were not rattled. (The Wings fans are booing, which is disappointing. I think they should simply be quiet.)

Malkin gets the Conn Smythe, easy choice. Crosby was neutralized most of the series and Malkin more than carried his share. (Including in PIM.)

Not sure what Babcock didn't get done this game. Seems like some of it was coaching, at least. Got to hand it to Bylsma, keeping Pittsburgh on track after a disastrous Game 5.

The five-year rule is still in effect, so that's really all I have to say. (And yes, that means I'm limited in what I say about the Wings until 2017.)

If you're a Pittsburgh fan, congratulations.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 6: Pittsburgh 2, Detroit 1

Once again, Pittsburgh won the game it had to win. This time, it was a one-goal game ... the Pens jumped out in the second, added an insurance goal in the third, and then clung to their lead for dear life as the Wings roared back.

The goaltending was pretty even: I thought Osgood played better overall, but he allowed a soft goal and a somewhat weak goal; Fleury gave up only one goal, a tough play that probably wasn't on him. (To be fair, without help from Scuderi and a post, it could been 2-2 in regulation ...)

Once again, the role players didn't contribute much. Staal is not quite a role play. Kennedy's goal definitely counts, but you could match that with Draper's first of the playoffs. There was one play where Crosby fought valiantly in his own end to blunt a Detroit rush, worked the puck free, laid it to center ice ... and watched as it slid to a Detroit defenseman. He can't be at both ends at once, guys.

The officiating was dreadful. Apparently Bettman has slept through the entire series, either that or Brian Burke is now in charge of officiating. They don't call anything any more: blatant trips/holds/obstructions ... at least it's terrible both ways, so the Wings don't have to stretch their weaker PK unit and the Pens can shut down Detroit's faster players, but still, if I wanted to watch '90s hockey, I'd break out the VCR.

Each team has defended home ice, and here we are ... for the first time in 54 years, Hockeytown will host a Game 7. (Believe it or not, that counts all three sports: the three seven-game series the Pistons lost and the '68 World Series all ended on the road.) Strangely enough, in 1955, the home team won the first six games as well.

Game 7, 1955? Detroit 3, Montreal 1. The Wings outscore the Canadiens by 7 in the Series and win back-to-back Cups against Montreal.

Detroit holds a four-goal edge over Pittsburgh in the series. Is a three-goal win possible? I'd say not, barring a cataclysmic breakdown, and the Pens already had that in Game 5.

I stick to my early prediction: Wings in 7. Detroit 2, Pittsburgh 1, Osgood gets the Conn Smythe.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 5: Detroit 5, Pittsburgh 0

Wow.

Okay, first of all, Pavel Datsyuk is not worth 3 goals per game. He's not. Second, you can't draw too many conclusions from a single game.

However, if you look at what happened in Games 1 and 2, and then look at this game, I just don't see how you can say Pittsburgh can win in this building. I'm not even sure they can beat Detroit in Game 6.

For the first few minutes, Pittsburgh played well, as they have in virtually every game. Kronwall took a silly penalty early in the first ... and the Penguins did not score. In fact, they didn't have many chances. The presence of Datsyuk on the penalty kill made a huge difference.

After one, it was 1-0 Detroit, with Kunitz in the box for a silly penalty (somewhat questionable). The Pens kill that off, and ... give up a goal on that shift, even-strength. That might not have been too bad, but then Gonchar took a dumb penalty, and it was 3-0. Malkin penalty, 4-0. Kunitz penalty, 5-0, and that was that.

Well, Pittsburgh had a few more penalties left in them, including 3 misconducts in the third period, and once again, they're lucky the NHL doesn't care about discipline - imagine if Malkin had been suspended for Game 3?

I'm not really sure how much of it was youth, how much was frustration, and how much was the realization that they simply aren't good enough yet. (They can still win, sure, but they're not the better team.) For that, you could forgive Crosby and Malkin a little frustration. If Hossa had stayed in Pittsburgh, this would be an even series at least, and with Datsyuk out, the Pens might have won it by now. But he went to Detroit, and right now, it looks like that was a good move.

I think Bylsma has to throw this entire game out. None of this ever happened. He has to tell the team that Datsyuk will be healthy for Game 6, so the Pens have to come out hard, keep the pressure on, take the lead, and hold on. Fleury has to be solid. One of the "grit" players has to step up. (That doesn't narrow it down much ... which is the problem with filling your roster with that kind of player.) I don't think Pittsburgh will take stupid penalties at home, but then I thought they'd come out tough today, and they only played 18 minutes of good hockey.

Emrick is talking about how the Wings have made statements against three teams this season: against San Jose twice, against Chicago twice, and now. I can't argue with that. The Wings showed how well they can play at home, and with one on the table if they need it, they've put up a pretty convincing case for their 12th Cup.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 4: Pitttsburgh 4, Detroit 2

Better get this in before Game 5 starts ... it's a little more difficult because the 'p' on my keyboard doesn't want to work. No, really. Not sure what that's about ...

This is the game that I thought Pittsburgh would have in Game 3. Unfortunately, it means that the Penguins are the team with momentum coming into Game 5. The one positive thing Detroit can take from the game is that Pittsburgh had to win it: witness the 2008 Finals, when Detroit stole Game 4 and basically ended the series.

Having said that, it was the one game in the series so far where Pittsburgh clearly carried both the flow and the score. The second period was a series of Detroit mistakes and Pittsburgh goals ... something that the Wings could not do in Game 3, when Pittsburgh left the door open.

It's possible that Detroit is feeling the fatigue of the schedule, but somehow I don't know that this is any different than past years ... 4 games in 6 nights vs. 4 games in 7 nights on some occasions. Sucks a bit, but then Pittsburgh had the same schedule, and even if some Pens are younger than some Wings, Pittsburgh has older players too and they didn't seem to suck.

I also think it does a disservice to the game Pittsburgh played, implying that if the Wings were fresher they would have been toe-to-toe with Pittsburgh. (Now that entire part of the keyboard is going out. sigh. Probably a cord problem. Back to typing on the laptop itself.)

Detroit has laid eggs in the playoffs before, and they have the experience to put this behind them. Pittsburgh still has to win four of the last five games in the series, Detroit only had to win two. Win tonight, and they've got two chances to wrap it up. With Datsyuk coming back, I wouldn't bet against them.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 2: Detroit 3, Pittsburgh 1

Second verse, same as the first: two games, two nights, two wins, and the more things change, the more things seem to stay the same. The Penguins did manage to get on the board in both games, even taking the lead in Game 2, but they just don't have the talent to play with Detroit, and that's clear when you look at the job that the Wings have done on Crosby and Malkin. They're both special players, and Malkin has done an excellent job, all things considered, but Crosby has disappeared again ... he just can figure out what to do against the Detroit defense, and really, the other two lines aren't exactly helping (although to be fair, I guess Pittsburgh usually rolls three lines, so you can't expect the fourth-line guys to contribute).

The officiating was bad again. I guess there's been a directive from Gary Butt-man to roll the clock back 15 years ... if I squint, I can almost see Rangers-Canucks or Devils-Wings, complete with holding, grabbing, and interfering. Until the game was clearly over, at least there wasn't any bad physical stuff, and even at that point McCreary had to give the Wings a power play after Malkin threw his cereal on the floor and screamed. I mean, the second Detroit goal came after Hossa committed a couple of uncalled penalties, players are getting pulled down right in front of a ref with no penalty ... who knows what the series would be like if Pittsburgh's power play was on the ice?

The outburst by the Pens at the end was expected, I guess. Olczyk (former Pens head coach) in particular seemed to like it and trotted out the old "sending a message" line. And I always respond that the message is on the scoreboard. In a sense, it was really stupid of Malkin ... if he jams a finger on Zetterberg's head and can't play in Game 3, you know? But he was frustrated, and he probably felt this was the best way to express himself.

And like Anaheim and Chicago before them, the Pens can take their Philadelphia ways home with them. (The Flyers have been playing like that for 35 years or so and the NHL has practically embraced it, which is a shame. It's much better to watch talented teams playing hockey than to watch semi-talented teams playing rugby on ice.)

The Pens just can't compete with Detroit's depth, and at some point, the talking heads are going to have to acknowledge the job the Wings' defense has done. We heard the same blah-blah-blah about Kane and Toews, the two youngsters unlike anyone the Wings had played so far, and five games later, the Hawks were done.

Come on, Datsyuk and Draper, two of the three best defensive forwards on the Wings, have missed the first two games, and Detroit's won two two-goal games. How much more do they need to show to prove they're the better team by far? If Pittsburgh were missing Malkin and, say, Staal had missed the first two games, and Detroit were perfectly healthy, it might have been 4-0 and 5-0 like last year.

Pittsburgh has three games left, max. I think they'll split at home and lose Game 5 on Saturday.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 1: Detroit 3, Pittsburgh 1

I'd love to give a more detailed recap, but frankly WTHR sucks balls and I can't do it. I still don't understand why they spent so much time giving us so little useful information. It was pathetic, really. (Especially when they actually went off the air for a bit, and not my satellite either: DirecTV had no signal to transmit. Embarrassing.)

And this is why networks are working themselves out of the sports business. For one thing, they cover sports so infrequently, they have to borrow guys (and gals) from the networks that do cover it. For another, they're at the mercy of the local stations: there are thousands of stories during NFL season about local affiliates screwing over the fans in various ways. Here, it wasn't NBC's fault that WTHR ruined the broadcast, but it happened nonetheless, and it reflects poorly on NBC.

You see, the networks used to be everything to everybody, and they still think they can do that. The problem is that for cable and satellite customers, specialized channels long ago eclipsed most of what the networks offer, and the irony is that digital channels will do the rest. Why bother to watch the regular weather on WTHR news when you can watch their weather channel 24/7?

The networks are just sheep any more, only bothering to feed people whatever the other networks seemed to have done well. I think if Fox decided to put on dead air between 8 and 8:30 on Thursdays, the others would follow suit because they'd think there must be something to it.

I never thought I'd look forward to Vs covering the Cup finals, but I guess I am now.

Anyway, the Penguins played well, but the Wings played better. We heard the same tired storyline as last season (Can the veterans hang with the young, fast Penguins, especially Crosby and Malkin?), and it played out pretty much the same as before. The Wings also have fast players (remember Helm's breakaway) and the Penguins also have old players, so let's put that one to rest. The Penguins have health and the Wings don't, that's about it ... but it was the Wings who had the depth (yet again) to win Game 1. Lidstrom played only a little bit under his usual numbers, and Babcock was able to roll four lines the whole game.

The extreme lack of penalty calls might favor the Pens a little (or not - Detroit's penalty kill has been atrocious so far), but aside from that, unless Bylsma has something up his sleeve for Game 2, we're going to see a repeat of last year's Finals.

I have to admit that I didn't think Detroit would make it this far when the playoffs started, but honestly, they've just done the same things they did last season. The talking heads want this to be an exciting series and want Pittsburgh's young guns to carry the day (everyone loves an underdog), but I just don't see it yet.

Game 2 tomorrow night. A Detroit win forces the Pens to win four of five; a Pittsburgh win means the Penguins can hold serve to win the series.