Posts from the Nhl Eastern Conference Category at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

It's been sixteen years since Mario Lemieux lifted the Stanley Cup high in Chicago Stadium, celebrating the Penguins' second consecutive championship. The franchise has hit a lot of ups and downs since that 6-5 win over the Blackhawks, nearly reaching the finals again in 1996 and 2002 and nearly fading into oblivion in 1999 and again in 2007.

Now that the team is back in the Finals, the question on every Pittsburgher's mind is, "Can they win it?" They're not the favorites and they're facing a much tougher task than they have in any of the first three rounds against the star-laden, veteran Detroit Red Wings. Given the lack of overlap between the conferences and the relative ease with which both teams dominated clearly inferior opponents in the playoffs, I can't tell you if the Penguins are going to win (also, I'm a Pens' fan and there's no way I'm jinxing this). What I can do is give you five solid reasons that the Penguins CAN win the Cup.

1. Evgeni Malkin- Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby get all the press, but there hasn't been a better player in the NHL than Malkin since mid-January. In the 21 games Crosby missed, Malkin scored 36 points. In the second half of the year, he's got 60. With Crosby back in the playoffs, Malkin hasn't missed a beat. Through Game 1 in the Flyers series, he had eight goals and nine assists. The Flyers targeted him from that point on, beat him up pretty good, and he only managed one goal and one assist in the final four games of the series, but with a week off he should be ready to go for the Finals. Sidney Crosby is the media darling, but Malkin is the guy that almost every Penguin fan wants with the puck on his stick in the last minutes of a close game.

Of course, when I say "open Mellon Arena," I mean the gates only, not actually opening the roof on the thing (something that hasn't been done since I don't know when and isn't technically possible with the scoreboard they put in back in the 90s). Apparently, the big screen on the lawn in front of Mellon has been such a big success, the Penguins are thinking about opening the Igloo up to fans for road games.

The decision won't be made officially until tomorrow, but I doubt they would float this idea unless they had a pretty good idea it was going to happen. I assume this is being tossed around because of the popularity of the big screen that's been on the Mellon lawn all through the playoffs. The crowd there has grown from maybe a couple hundred people during the first round against Ottawa to a couple thousand for the Eastern Conference Finals. I assume there's the possibility that the lawn won't fit the crowds that pour in for the Finals. Also, the chance to sell all those people concessions might have something to do with this idea.

Personally, I can think of about a million places in the city I'd rather watch the game than inside of the Mellon Arena on the Jumbotron. The arena is old and the seats are tiny with almost no legroom. It's still great to watch an actual hockey game that's being played in front of you, but one that's just on the scoreboard? No thank you.

Just over two years ago, Pittsburgh sports fans will surely recall that one of the city's other franchises was playing for a championship. The Steelers team that brought the city its first championship since Mario Lemieux lifted the cup way back in 1992 doesn't have a lot in common with these Penguins, but there is one striking aspect: that Steeler team was quarterbacked by Ben Roethlisberger, who became the youngest quarterback in history to win the Super Bowl.

During the hype leading up to Super Bowl XL that year, the previous youngest quarterback to play in a Super Bowl, Pittsburgh native Dan Marino, offered some advise to the young QB: don't take this chance for granted because you might not ever be back. Marino knew all about it because he never got another shot at a ring after losing in Super Bowl XIX at the age of 24.

As the Penguins have torn through the Eastern Conference, a sentiment that started as a whisper has grown to a dull roar and will explode if these young Pens lift the Cup. That sentiment is that we're witnessing the birth of a dynasty. That Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are the next Gretzky and Messier or Bossy and Trottier, destined to rule the NHL for the forseeable future. Maybe that will happen, but maybe it won't.

Hopefully every Penguin fan out there is still basking in the glow of their 6-0 stomping of the Flyers this afternoon (I know I am). The best description of the day comes from Seth Rohrbaugh of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Empty-Netters blog (which is also where the embed above comes from):

-We went to roughly 15 games in the 2003-04 season with our friends and pretty much did the student rush thing every time. We could show up 10 minutes before a game and get a C level seat for $20. They didn't even ask for our student identification. They Penguins were just happy to get rid of the ticket and make some profit on it. Most nights, there were barely 12,000 souls in the stands that season. The team was awful. Dick Tarnstrom was the leading scorer. Most people in this town had never heard of Sidney Crosby. The future of the franchise was uncertain. Rumors of relocation were constant. It was a tough team to invest your emotions into.

-It's absolutely mind blowing to us to know that was only four years ago. We just saw this team get into the Stanley Cup final.

Just about everything he writes there is true and I know because I did the exact same thing as a freshman in college that year. Anyways, Pens' fans, take a couple minutes to enjoy the goals from Ryan Malone, Marian Hossa, Evgeni Malkin, Pascal Dupuis, and Jordan Staal, and some big saves from Marc-Andre Fleury, who played with a 6-0 lead just like he would've in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in overtime. This team's come a long way from the one that Seth described and there's no question they've earned the ticket to the finals that they punched this afternoon.

Following the Penguins' Game 4 loss in Philadelphia, there were lots of questions going into Game 5. Could the Flyers keep the momentum going? How huge would the return of Kimmo Timonen be for the Flyers? How would the Pens respond to the loss?

As it turned out, it took about two and a half minutes to answer that question. Ryan Malone deflected in a Sidney Crosby pass to put the Pens up 1-0. Then Evgeni Malkin snuck a wraparound behind Martin Biron and things looked really good for the Pens. Then Marian Hossa, Malone (again), Jordan Staal, and Pascal Dupuis kept the avalanche of goals going and by the time it was all said and done, the Pens rolled up a 6-0 win over their rival Flyers to bring the Prince of Wales Trophy to Pittsburgh for the first time since 1992.

With the smoke clearing from this game, it's way too early to worry about the Finals (go celebrate, Pens' fans!), but it's hard to think that the young Pens are going to be overmatched against anyone in light of their awesome performance today to eliminate the Flyers. In the words of Mike Lange: HOP IN THE CORDOBA, BABY! THE PENGUINS ARE GOING DANCING WITH LORD STANLEY!

And so we've come to this. What was supposed to be a knock-down drag-out series is looking very dangerously like a Pittsburgh sweep. Except for about ten minutes during the first period in game one and brief stretch in the second period of game two, this series has been almost all Penguins these first three games. Marian Hossa, Sidney Crosby, and Evgeni Malkin have stepped things up big for the Pens while everyone not named Mike Richards has faded into the woodwork for the short-handed Flyers.

Braydon Coburn won't be coming back tonight thanks to his ugly eye injury, but playing to avoid a sweep in front of the home crowd is always a huge incentive (just ask Dallas or New York). Gary Roberts won't be playing for the Penguins thanks to what's being called "mild pneumonia," which I had no idea existed. The Flyers are really going to have to raise their level of play from where it was in Game 3 if they want to make another trip to the western part of Pennsylvania. Can they pull it off? Follow along with our liveblog after the jump.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

It appears that the only thing separating the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings from a date in the Stanley Cup Finals is the formality of a fourth win. Just like Detroit had done in Dallas Monday night, the Penguins took a 3-0 series stranglehold in Philadelphia with a 4-1 win last night.

Defenseman Ryan Whitney and trade deadline acquisition Marian Hossa scored goals less than three minutes apart in the first period to open the Game Three scoring, with new playoff scoring leader Sidney Crosby assisting on both goals. Flyers forward R.J. Umberger cut the lead in half with his 10th goal of the postseason, but a third period goal by Ryan Malone and an empty-net goal by Hossa sealed the decision for Pittsburgh.

It's tough to say why 3-0 series leads are such the rage in the NHL lately, but since the first round ended, five of the six series in Rounds Two and Three have started with near-sweeps. While I'll admit that there is some excitement generated from having elimination games happen early in a series, in a practical sense it makes for some quickly uninteresting series. Granted, I'm a fan of a team that was eliminated in Round One, so I'm somewhat cynical. Even so, from a competitive angle these playoffs seem to have lost the thrill of a tightly-contested series; right now the most interesting topic of discussion seems to be what will happen when juggernauts collide in the cup finals. It looks as if the Fanhouse panel will be discussing that Detroit-Pittsburgh matchup sooner than we thought.

After the break: More from your Fanhousers, the Stat of the Day, and a YouTube summary of Detroit and Dallas Game Three.

Games don't get much more important than game three's in a 2-0 series and tonight's Penguins/Flyers game is no exception. If the Flyers win, they cut Pittsburgh's lead down to 2-1 with another game in the Wachovia Center looming on Thursday. If the Penguins win, they take a 3-0 lead and history, the odds, and basic probability is on their side.

Can the Flyers get to Marc-Andre Fleury? Can the Penguins silence the Philadelphia crowd early? Can the Flyers keep up being down two defensemen? Did Gary Roberts really get pneumonia? The answer to all these questions and more are coming tonight in the biggest game of the season for both teams, so follow along with the liveblog after the jump.

As the old saying goes, "If it wasn't for bad luck, the Flyers wouldn't have any luck at all." One day after taking a puck right between his eyes, Braydon Coburn's prospects for Game 3 on Monday are not looking very good. Anyone that saw him go down with blood pouring on the ice probably isn't surprised by that news, but it's still a blow to the Flyers to have the worst confirmed. From the Philadelphia Daily News's Flyers' blog:

Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn is considered "probably doubtful" for tomorrow night's Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against Pittsburgh, general manager Paul Holmgren said today.

Coburn required more than 50 stitches to close a circular cut around his left eye suffered early in the Flyers' 4-2 loss Sunday night in Game 2.

There's two ways to read that phrasing from Holmgren: 1.) "It's the Stanley Cup Playoffs and we're not telling you jack about his injury," or, 2.)"He got hit in the face with a puck and has 50 stitches between his eyes ... what do you think?" Since it is the playoffs, we can't really rule out the first one, but the second is certainly more likely. There is at least a silver lining today; there's no damage to Coburn's eye, so he'll likely make a full recovery. If he can't go on Tuesday, Ryan Parent will take his place in the lineup.

After the Penguins cruised to a 4-2 win in game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, mostly everyone agreed that the Flyers were nowhere near physical enough and that trying to score with the Penguins, as they did in the first period of the game, was going to lead with a short series. The Flyers must agree because word out of Pittsburgh today is that John Stevens is going to dress Steve Downie tonight. Downie, for his part, seems ready to go:

"I'll play my usual, simple, physical game," he said. Downie, who has played in four of the team's 13 postseason games, said he already has learned something about the Penguins.

"Discipline. That seems to be the key to Pittsburgh," he said. "You don't want to give them too many power plays."

If Downie does indeed play (and Stevens hasn't confirmed it yet), then discipline will definitely be the key for a player that only played in 32 games, averaged less than 10 minutes on the ice in those games, and still racked up 73 penalty minutes. The Flyers do need to be more physical tonight, but the last thing they need to do is take stupid penalties that give the Penguins a chance to take an early lead in front of the home crowd.