The most hardcore NBA fans will usually use the best-of-seven argument to display how their favorite sport puts the best teams in the latter rounds as a way to show some superiority over the college game. Let's just ignore how I think this is wrong and assume that it is, in most cases, right.
For whatever reason, I just don't feel that the best teams always get to the Stanley Cup Finals. This year, though, for probably the first time since the 2001 Finals between the Avalanche and Devils, the two best teams met for the championship.
I'm not totally sure why this happens in hockey. My first hunch is to say that the nature of overtime can have this effect on momentum and confidence, but then again, I've really only been following hockey since about 1996 (Uwe Krupp scoring the clincher for the Avs) or so.
The best example of this was the seventh-seeded then-Mighty Ducks, who won a triple-OT Game 1 against the Red Wings, five-OT(!) Game 1 against the Stars and then a measly double-OT Game 1 against the Wild in the conference finals. That team also had the brick wall that was 2003 J.S. Giguere in the playoffs, another way underdogs winning in the hockey playoffs could be explained.
But yet, if you're a fan of hockey in general, and especially after this year, it would be fully understandable if you never want to see another sneaky seven-seed playing for the Stanley Cup again.
As great and star-studded as the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals were, it could be easy to forget a few years down the road how absolutely dominant the Red Wings were in this series. To measure a team's control of the game in total shots can sometimes be futile, but in this series, it seemed to tell a tale. In every game, Detroit outshot Pittsburgh, and in four of the games, outshot them by 10 or more.
You really can't say enough about the play of Detroit's top line of Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, and Tomas Holmstrom. And in turn, when you mention those three guys in this series, you have to mention Mike Babcock, who was gutsy enough to put his top line against the best the Penguins had to offer in Sidney Crosby.
Crosby ended the series with a respectable line of six points, but I don't know how Detroit held him pointless in the first two games of the series.
It does, however, make me worry for the league to have a series like this. And by that I really mean that, save having these two teams meet back up in this series next year (very possible), I'm not sure how it can get a whole lot better than this when it comes to the whole package of general excitement in the sport. I truly hope I am proven wrong on this one.
Of course, here's to hoping that next year we can see the Penguins and Capitals duel for Eastern Conference supremacy and that the best team in Detroit can get a solid challenge in defense of the Cup. And yes, that the top two teams in the league can once again play in the final series.
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