Stanley Cup Finals Preview - Chicago vs. Philadelphia

Hockey Betting Lines

05/26/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It's been nearly a half-century since the Chicago Blackhawks have claimed Lord Stanley's Cup as their own, but four more wins could finally bring another parade.

Since last winning it all in 1961, the Blackhawks have lost in all five of their trips to the Cup Finals. They made it to the final stage four times in the 12 seasons following '61, but then had to wait until 1992 for another shot at glory and that ended in a sweep at the hands of Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

After ending a five-season playoff drought by qualifying for the postseason last spring, the Blackhawks proved they belonged by making it to the Western Conference finals before bowing out to Detroit. This year, Chicago won its first division title since 1993 and entered the playoffs as a serious Stanley Cup contender.

Joel Quenneville's club experienced a few bumps in the road in eliminating both Nashville and Vancouver in Rounds 1 and 2, respectively, but it then easily dispatched San Jose in the conference finals, sweeping the top-seeded Sharks in four games.

Chicago enters this round as a considerable favorite thanks to a topsy-turvy Eastern Conference playoffs that saw the bottom two seeds in the East battle each other for a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals. As it turns out, the seventh- seeded Flyers, who like the Blackhawks are winless in their last five trips to Cup Finals, were able to oust Montreal in five games.

The Blackhawks are led on offense by a formidable top line that features team captain and centerman Jonathan Toews between wingers Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien.

Despite being just 22 years old, Toews is handling his duties as the captain of a Cup-contending team considerably well. He is leading the entire league with 26 points (7 goals, 19 assists) and enters the Finals riding a 13-game point streak -- the longest such streak in Blackhawks playoff history.

Kane, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft, is second to Toews with 20 points on seven goals and 13 assists, while Byfuglien is pacing Chicago with eight goals.

What makes Chicago's No. 1 forward unit so effective is balance. Toews is a pass-first centerman who also happens to be a responsible defensive player. Then, Kane provides tremendous speed and goal-scoring ability on one wing, while Byfuglien, at 6-foot-4, 257 pounds, adds considerable size and strength to the top line. They all do different things well and that makes them a difficult trio to play against.

The scoring doesn't end at the top for Chicago, either. In fact, the Blackhawks have 11 skaters with two or more goals in this postseason and 10 of those players are forwards.

Of the players not included on the top line, Patrick Sharp and Marian Hossa are the biggest weapons up front for Chicago and both have produced so far in this postseason. Sharp, who began his career in Philadelphia, has seven goals and 16 points, while Hossa has only scored twice but has added nine assists.

Even further down the depth chart, the Blackhawks also get scoring from the likes of Dave Bolland (5g, 5a) and Kris Versteeg (4g, 5a).

The depth for Chicago continues on the defensive side with star blueliners Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Brian Campbell leading the way at the back end.

Keith is the No. 1 guy on the Chicago blueline and a finalist for this year's Norris Trophy. The 26-year-old leads the Blackhawks this postseason with 10 points (1g, 9a) and an average of 27 minutes, 52 seconds of ice time per game.

Seabrook, who like Keith helped Team Canada win gold at the Vancouver Olympics, has three goals and six assists in the postseason and is second on the team in ice time.

Campbell has been disappointing with just three points -- all assists -- in the tournament. He has so far failed to live up to the lucrative contract he signed back in the summer of 2008 and that fact is reflected by Campbell's reduced playing time. Campbell is fourth among Chicago defenseman in ice time, finishing behind Niklas Hjalmarsson.

Hjalmarsson, a 23-year-old from Sweden, is also outscoring Campbell with one goal and four assists in the playoffs. Still, Campbell is a plus-six for the postseason and he is one of the best-skating defensemen in the league, Add his power-play skills to the mix and it's clear Chicago could do a lot worse at its fourth defensemen spot.

The situation in net for Chicago seems much better now than it did just a few weeks back. Many critics believed Antti Niemi was a liability because he had never seen action in the playoffs before this year, but the Finnish backstop has proven his detractors wrong so far.

The 26-year-old Niemi, who was about two weeks too old to be considered a rookie this year, played himself into the starting role on this club, taking the No. 1 spot from Cristobal Huet. Niemi has not slowed down in the postseason, going 12-4 with a 2.33 goals-against average and a .921 save percentage.

Niemi comes into this series on a high note, having yielded a total of eight goals over his last five games.

With all the depth on offense and defense, it's not surprising that the Blackhawks are well-equipped on special teams. Chicago has scored on 22.6 percent of its power-play opportunities in the postseason, scoring 14 times on 62 opportunities with man advantage.

The Hawks have also killed off 58-of-67 power plays for an 86.6 percent success rate on the penalty kill.

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS (7th seed, East)

REGULAR SEASON RECORD: 41-35-6

2010 PLAYOFFS: Defeated New Jersey 4-1 in conference quarterfinals; defeated Boston 4-3 in conference semifinals; defeated Montreal 4-1 in conference finals.

PLAYOFF STATISTICAL LEADERS: Points, Mike Richards (21); goals, Danny Briere (9); assists, Richards (15); plus-minus, Claude Giroux (+10)

KEY PLAYOFF STATS: Goals-for, 54; goals-against, 36; power-play %, 20.7; penalty-kill %, 87.0

(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 2010 Philadelphia Flyers have already proven themselves this year to be one of the most resilient teams in NHL history, overcoming all sorts of obstacles in their shocking run to the Stanley Cup Finals.

But, without a championship to celebrate, all the trials and tribulations will seem to have been all for naught.

By now, hockey fans all over the globe know the story. The Flyers only made the playoffs because they were able to beat the rival New York Rangers in a shootout on the final day of the season. Philly then pulled off a pair of upsets, knocking off division champion New Jersey in Round 1 before doing the unthinkable in the conference semis, coming back from a 3-0 series deficit to beat Boston in seven games. All that was left was a five-game victory over Montreal in a conference finals matchup that had the seventh-seeded Flyers boast home-ice advantage over the No. 8 Canadiens.

Philly had to do all that while battling injury after injury to goaltenders (Brian Boucher and Michael Leighton) and key forwards (Simon Gagne, Jeff Carter, Ian Laperriere).

And all that is just what has happened since the start of April. Prior to the frantic push to the playoffs and the subsequent postseason success, the Flyers watched as presumptive No. 1 goaltender Ray Emery's season ended in February, and before that the team fired head coach John Stevens and replaced him with Peter Laviolette, a coaching switch that has paid enormous dividends for the Orange & Black.

The Flyers, who are in the Cup Finals for the first time since being swept by Detroit in 1997, are hoping to pull off another upset in order to claim their first title since winning the second of two straight Cups in 1975.

Perhaps the biggest surprise during this remarkable season for Philadelphia has been the ascent of Leighton, who has gone from journeyman to savior during his second tenure with the Flyers.

With Emery injured in December, the Flyers picked up Leighton from Carolina on waivers and he outplayed Boucher to take over the No. 1 job in a hurry. Leighton wound up with a 16-5-2 record and a 2.48 GAA in 27 regular-season games with the Flyers before suffering a high ankle injury in March. The injury also caused him to miss nine playoff games, but when Boucher was hurt in Game 5 against Boston it was recently-healed Leighton's time to shine once again.

Leighton has been nothing short of amazing so far in the postseason, going 6-1 with a 1.45 GAA and .948 save percentage. He also set a Flyers club record with three shutouts in one series, pulling off the feat in the last round against Montreal.

Now, Leighton has a chance to beat one of his former teams in Chicago, which selected him in the sixth round of the 1999 draft.

While the Flyers could only dream Leighton would be this valuable come playoff time, they were banking on Chris Pronger dominating in the postseason when they traded for the star defenseman at last summer's draft.

Pronger has been as advertised on the blueline, using his tremendous size to shut down the opposition while also chipping in on offense. The former Hart and Norris Trophy winner is leading all NHLers with an average of 28 minutes, 48 seconds of ice time per games in the playoffs. Pronger also enters this series tied with San Jose's Dan Boyle for the most points by a defenseman in this postseason, notching 14 points on four goals and 10 assists.

Like the Blackhawks, the Flyers are able to rotate their top-four defensemen with confidence. In addition to Pronger, Philadelphia also has the vastly underrated Kimmo Timonen as well as a pair of talented 25-year-olds in Matt Carle and Braydon Coburn. Carle and Timonen have notched 10 and eight points, respectively, on all assists. Coburn has one goal and two assists so far.

All four of those players are averaging over 24 minutes of ice time per game, a clear sign that Laviolette is riding his top-four blueliners rather than give significant minutes to either Ryan Parent, Lukas Krajicek or Oskars Bartulis.

The Flyers biggest asset -- now that they are healthy again -- is their scoring depth. Just like the Blackhawks, Philly has 11 players with two or more goals in this postseason and 10 of those players are forwards.

Flyers captain Mike Richards has been the most consistent offensive weapon for Philadelphia in the postseason and his 21 points (6g, 15a) are second only to Toews this spring.

Richards had been centering a line with Gagne and Carter towards the end of the Montreal series. Both Gagne and Carter were sidelined by injuries earlier in the playoffs, but are both healthy now. Gagne has seven goals and 10 points in 13 games, while Carter has four goals and an assist over six contests.

Philly's centermen on its second and third lines, Danny Briere and Claude Giroux, have had very productive playoffs as well. Briere, who has been anchoring a line with Scott Hartnell and Ville Leino on the wings, is first on the Flyers with nine goals and second on the team with 18 points.

However, Briere needs to regain his scoring touch, as he failed to record a point in the final three games of the Montreal series. The diminutive forward had five goals and five assists in the second round against Boston, but had just two markers and three points against the Habs.

Meanwhile, Giroux has eight goals and nine assists in this postseason and the 22-year-old has 22 points (10g, 12a) in his 23 career playoff games. Giroux usually centers a line with Arron Asham and rookie James van Riemsdyk on the wings.

Philly's remaining line of centerman Blair Betts and wingers Laperriere and Darroll Powe has provided energy and responsible defensive play.

The Flyers faced excellent penalty-killing teams in Boston and Montreal over the last two rounds and will face another strong group in the Cup Finals. Philadelphia, which has scored on 20.7 percent of its opportunities with the man advantage in this postseason, will need its power play to be at its best if it wants to upset Chicago.

Philadelphia's penalty-killing has been superb in the playoffs so far with the Flyers stopping the opposition from scoring 87 percent of the time.

MATCHUP

One city will see a long championship drought end with this Cup Finals battle -- the only question is whether it will be Philadelphia or Chicago.

The Blackhawks have waited longer than any other team for another Stanley Cup title and would obviously prefer that the championship dry spell doesn't reach an even 50 years. Philadelphia's 35-year wait also seems like an eternity for a franchise that so desperately wants to add a third banner to the rafters.

The Flyers and Blackhawks faced each other just once this season, but it was a very exciting battle and could give us some clues as to how this series will unfold.

Philly pulled out a 3-2 home victory over the 'Hawks on March 13 and all five goals came in the third period. Chicago appeared headed to a victory after taking a 2-1 lead with just over seven minutes left, but Hartnell tied the game with 2:04 remaining and Pronger scored the game-winner with just 2.1 ticks left on the clock.

Chicago was going through a rough stretch when it played in the City of Brotherly Love in March and wound up losing its next two games, also because of bad third periods. At this stage, however, the Blackhawks have certainly figured out how to close a game.

Huet was the goaltender for Chicago in the March meeting and Niemi has never faced the Flyers. Leighton's only career game against the team that drafted him was in this year's tilt between Philly and the 'Hawks.

The only playoff meeting between Chicago and Philadelphia was in the 1971 quarterfinals, a series that was swept by the Blackhawks.

The Blackhawks rightfully enter this series as the favorite due to their superior regular season and they do appear to be the stronger team on paper. The Flyers, on the other hand, have been playing with tons of confidence since falling behind three games to none versus Boston and have enough depth to hang with Chicago in this series.

The biggest concern for Philadelphia is trying to contain the Blackhawks' top line and slow down Chicago's potent offense. The Flyers have played three weak offensive opponents in the playoffs so far this spring and will have to take their defensive effort to the next level to pull off the Cup Finals upset.

Philly's offense also needs to keep up with the Blackhawks' scoring pace, a task that has proven difficult for all three of Chicago's opponents so far in these playoffs.

Neither team has much of an edge in net as both club's goaltenders are still fighting for respect. However, as always, this series could be stolen by one of the boys between the pipes.

Both clubs have excellent coaches in Quenneville and Laviolette. The Flyers' bench boss would appear to have the edge, having led Carolina to a Stanley Cup championship in 2006. This is Quenneville's first trip to the Cup Finals.

The odds-makers have made Chicago heavy favorites for this round, but this series should be closer than expected. Still, in the end the Blackhawks have the stronger roster on paper and are poised to stop Philadelphia's surprising run at a championship.

Sportsbook Betting Lines predicted outcome: Blackhawks in 7