Stanley Cup Finals - three stars
I’ve done this for each of the previous rounds. Without further ado here are the three stars for the finals - according to me.
First Star - Henrik Zetterberg
Dave Sandford - Getty Images
Tough to argue with the Conn Smythe winner as the first star for the series. Z was only +1 for the entire series, but given the fact he often plays against the opposition’s top line that means he’s outscoring the best the oppostion has to offer. In this case that would be Sid Crosby. I gave Crosby a bit of a hard time this series but there’s no question he’s an excellent talent. It’s certainly not a fluke that a player as young as Crosby put up as many points as he did throughout the playoffs.
Detroit held the Pens off the scoreboard in the first two games and didn’t allow an even-strength goal in four of the six contests. Pittsburgh didn’t score an even-strength goal in Game 6, and part of that is due to Z playing more minutes against Crosby in Game 6 than any other forward.
Z was the best player on the ice. The Crosby line only scored twice at even-strength over the entire series and those were the two games the Penguins won. Z was on the ice for both goals, but he was also on the ice to kill a 3-on-5 short-handed penalty in the pivotal Game 4 victory that gave Detroit control of the series. On top of that he was a point a game player, tallying two goals and four assists. One of his goals ended up being the game-winning and series-clinching goal.
Second Star - Nicklas Lidstrom
Gene J. Puskar - AP Photo
Lidstrom was more or less Crosby’s unshakable shadow during the entire series. Lidstrom didn’t provide much in the way of offense - Brian Rafalski potted two goals and Brad Stuart got in on the goal-scoring as well - but his contributions were front and center as he was only on the ice for one Crosby goal in Game 3.
Third Star - Chris Osgood
Keith Srakocic - AP Photo
I really thought about going with a Penguins player here. Brooks Orpik had a strong series, Marc-Andre Fleury was responsible for the series heading back to Pittsburgh for Game 6, and Crosby and Marian Hossa both had their moments and nearly tied up Game 6 during the dying moments of the contest.
But Chris Osgood is perhaps the perfect personification of Mike Babcock’s mantra of you go out and you do what you do. Did Nick Lidstrom, Brian Rafalki, Brad Stuart, Niklas Kronwall, Hank Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Valtteri Filppula, Johan Franzen, Dan Cleary and Mikael Samuelsson play a huge role in making Ozzie’s workload a very manageable 24 or so shots per game? Of course. The key is Osgood was able to shut the door on the lion’s share of those decent to high quality scoring chances. And that’s more than Dominik Hasek - a guaranteed Hall of Famer - could do during the Nashville series.
Osgood did everything that was asked of him, allowing only 1.46 goals per game and stopping .929 percent of the shots he faced.
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