There Can Be Only One!

So Highlander has a cool concept and a sweet name, but otherwise it's a pretty terrible movie. What can you expect from a film that casts the eminently Scottish Sean Connery as a Spaniard and the Swiss-raised Christopher Lambert as a Scotsman? Still, the tagline is about the best in all of movies and fitting for what sits ahead for the Hawks.

It's easy to get caught up in the hype with the Hawks this season as a team of destiny. The franchise has followed a pretty movie-like storyline. They quietly accrued assets, breaking through on the ice just as the evil old man died and the reigns were passed to someone who wanted nothing more than to appease the fans. A comeback year in 07-08 ended just short of a playoff bid, but the buzz was there. A breakout season in 08-09 ended in a bitter Western Conference Finals defeat to the Wings, but the belief now seemed justified.

And then this year, the Hawks spend all season as one of the premier teams in the league, a team inferior to none and capable of anything. The playoffs somehow get easier as the team gets closer to the Cup. First they outlast the feisty Preds, then they battle but ultimately show clear dominance over the Canucks, and finally they utterly destroy the Sharks, but do so in a way that still showcases just how good the Sharks are (and thus how much of an accomplishment that sweep was).

Yes, everything seems to have been scripted for this team. Hell, we even have the perfect cast of characters, from an owner with a name straight out of one of the great movies ever made, to an "odd couple" of young superstars. The supporting cast couldn't be better - a mustachioed coach, a heart-and-soul blueliner who forfeits seven teeth but returns to help finish the series, a big friendly giant with a flair for the dramatic.

And now, to close it all out, the Hawks will face a team with a nice bit of history, a nice crew of quality players - just enough to make for a good foil as they take the final steps to hoisting the Cup.


But here's the thing - the Flyers have a bit of a team of destiny thing going themselves, and only one of us can live out the happy ending. Like the Hawks, it's been a long while since the Flyers won a Cup (1975, the second of the Broad Street Bullies' back-to-back titles). Like Chicago, Philly is fairly championship starved, with only a single baseball title in recent memory and not a whole lot as you go further back.

And like our current Hawks squad, this Flyers team has a nice bit of recent history going. The Lindros era, began with so much hoopla and hope, ended without a Cup in 2000, when he was stripped of his captaincy after publicly criticizing the team doctors for not diagnosing one of his many concussions. The Flyers were able to retool on the fly and lost a heart-breaking conference finals to the Lightning in 2004.

That team featured a hell of a lot of guys you'd recognize - including ex-Hawks Amonte, Roenick, Zhamnov, Jeff Hackett, and Eric Weinrich, as well as a pair of future Hawks who's time here was cut short due to injury - Michal Handzus and Kim Johnsson (remember him!). The lock-out would follow and the Flyers would come out of it looking very different.

After a respectable but disappointing 05-06 (101 points, lost in the first round), the Flyers tanked in 06-07, netting a whopping 56 points. But that allowed the team to refocus itself on a number of youngsters who helped their minor league club win the AHL. In 07-08 the Flyers barely made the playoffs, but got hot and reached the Conference Finals before the upstart Penguins knocked them off in 5 games.

The table was set and 08-09 was to be a great year... and in a lot of ways it was, as the team potted 99 points and scored a ton of goals. But they had the bad luck of facing the Penguins in the first round and again were knocked out by their in-state rivals.

This year they seemed to have taken another step back, barely qualifying for the playoffs with an overtime winner in their last game. Their reward - the Devils, as always a defensive powerhouse that now featured two of the game's top scorers in Kovalchuk and Parise.

The Flyers trounced them 4-1 in the only non-dramatic series in the whole first round. That series had nothing on what the Flyers just did to the Canadiens. Taking out Game 3, the Flyers just advanced to the Cup Finals by out-scoring Montreal 16-2 in their four victories. Read that again. 16-2. Against a team that had just knocked off both the Caps and the Penguins.

In between those? The Flyers just happened to manage one of the most memorable comebacks of all time, returning from a 3-0 deficit in a series and a 3-0 deficit in Game 7 to edge the Bruins.

And they've done it with an under-rated horde of talent. Like high-flying youngsters? Captain #18 Mike Richards was a part of Team Canada, is a back-to-back 30-goal scorer, and lead the team in points both in the regular and post-season. #17 Jeff Carter had 46 goals last year, 33 this year, and despite being limited to only 6 post-season games, still has netted four goals. They're both only 25. #28 Claude Giroux is only 22, but he has managed 74 points in his 126 NHL games.

Like proven vets? #48 Danny Briere has long been a guaranteed 25-35 goals every season, this year being no different, and until recently had been a point-per-game producer. #12 Simon Gagne potted 40 goals twice in a row a few seasons back and was able to score 17 (and assisted on 23 others) in only 58 games this year. #19 Scott Hartnell slumped to only 14 goals this year, but he's generally been good for 20-30 and a similar amount of helpers.

That's a pretty dangerous group right there, fully capable of scoring in bunches and keeping a team on its heels. But it's not all offense for these Flyers - the fact that two different goalies have been able to play so far above themselves in the Philly net this post-season speaks to how solid the defense is.

#20 Chris Pronger and #44 Kimmo Timonen are long-proven, highly reliable, impact vets. Especially Pronger, a guy who's done nothing but carry teams to the Finals since leaving the black hole of mediocrity that is the St. Louis Blues. In the past five years he's taken three different teams there - first losing a heart-breaker with the Oilers, then winning with the Ducks, before finally getting back again this year. None of those teams were clear Cup contenders before he got there.

Pronger and Timonen log heavy minutes, factor into the offense, and are the backbone of this squad. They each skate with a youngsters, both 25, who also log heavy minutes (about 25 a night) in #25 Matt Carle and #5 Braydon Coburn. All four have played like plus NHL defensemen these playoffs.

Of course, as any good Hawks fan knows, defense also requires strong work from the forwards, and while I can't speak to specifically who can do what, the great play of the Philly netminders speaks to a forward group that gets how to play in their own end.


Looking at this squad, I definitely have a healthy respect. First and most obviously, you don't reach the Cup Finals without having a hell of a lot of something. You've just beaten three straight playoff hockey teams in seven games series - that automatically means you're a highly capable squad and that you're on your game. Second, this club can definitely score and will do so from more than just one line. Third, this club has some legit blueliners who will answer the bell and forwards who help the defensive cause.

On top of all that, they've got a goalie who is red hot. After taking over for Brian Boucher in the midst of that stunning 3-0 turnaround (Boucher won Game 4 and played the first 25 minutes of Game 5), Michael Leighton has absolutely romped for all but two brief stretches.

The first was the three goal hole he put his team into in Game 7 against Bruins. But like his teammates, Leighton wouldn't quit and stoned the Bruins the rest of the way. This after he shut them out for the final 35 minutes in Game 5, pivotal not only because it made the series competitive again, but because those 35 minutes were the first Leighton had played in two months.

Leighton's other letdown was Game 3 against the Habs, when he got lit up for 5 goals. Taking that out, Leighton allowed only two goals in their wins, both in Game 5, and before that threw shut-outs in Games 1, 2, and the crucial Game 4. Throw in the fact that the previously red hot Boucher is back from an injury in case Leighton does falter, and the Flyers can have some confidence of a strong presence in the net this series.

In all, this is a team I fully expect to win two games from the Hawks. I know, I know, you're thinking that after romping the Sharks and facing an unheralded team from the helter skelter Eastern Conference, it just feels like the Hawks should cruise straight on to the Cup, right? Tickets for Game 5? Why bother?

Why, indeed. Maybe because the Preds pail in comparison to the Flyers in most respects, and yet Nashville was able to take two from the Hawks. The Canucks don't have an ounce of the playoff moxie the Flyers do, and still Vancouver took a pair from us. And let's not forget the sweep of the Sharks featured four straight games that were in doubt until the final minute. Six goals over four games - that's what the Hawks snuck by on.


But you know what? I don't see these Flyers taking any more than the two wins I now will expect from every team in every single NHL playoff series. Sure, the Flyers have a bunch of scorers. So too did the Canucks and Sharks. Those teams had front lines as good as any in hockey and secondary scoring that was top flight. Yet they still couldn't consistently solve the Hawks.

As I wrote in my last post, what I saw of the Hawks in those first couple of Sharks games was amazing. They turned into a lockdown defensive team, with all five skaters thinking defense first and doing everything they could in every facet of the game to keep a high-powered offense out of the back of the net for four straight games. With that approach, that ability, I don't see how the Flyers are going to break through enough times over a seven games series.

That's especially true because I've got a lot of faith in the Hawks O. Sure the Flyers have some nice defensemen and a hot goalie, but two things jump out to me. First, the Flyers allowed as many goals in the regular season as the Preds and more than both the Sharks and the Canucks. Since the Hawks got their heads out of their butts after Game 3 in Nashville, they've averaged around four goals a game. What reliable evidence is there that the Flyers are really going to be able to do any better defensively than the Hawks previous playoff opponents?

It sure isn't their defensive depth - if the Flyers are expecting their four defensemen to skate for 25+ minutes each against the three high-powered, uber-athletic lines the Hawks throw out there, we are going to see a lot of late-game breakdowns and a series that may start close but gets away from them after Game 3 or 4. Especially because the Flyers like to play a fast-paced game themselves, how are these four going to have the legs, especially when two of them are 35?

That leads into my second reason for faith in the Hawks - the Flyers haven't faced anything that resembles a good offense. Boston? Second worst in the league. Not second worst of the playoff teams, 2nd worst O in the whole league during the 82-game regular season. Habs? Eighth worst. And they were exhausted after two brutal 7-game series against the Caps and Penguins. New Jersey? Even with Parise and Kovalchuck for the final month, still 12th worst.

Those were defense-first teams that scored just enough to get by. In the Hawks, the Flyers are facing a team every bit as good defensively as Philly's previous opponents (if not better), but with an offense that is light years beyond what Philly has seen so far. Not only will the pure talent and execution level of the Hawks O be brutal for the Flyers to hang with, but it'll also be a hell of a transition to go from the hapless Bruins and exhausted Habs to one of the most dynamic offenses in the entire league.


The one wild card? Mental approach. As I've said before every series and has been proven true - if the Hawks outwork their opponent, they will win a 7-game series. It is the same this time around, and I actually think the Hawks have more room for error than they did against the Sharks, possibly more than they did against the Canucks.

However, things have suddenly changed. I noticed when I was at Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals that there weren't all kinds of fans carrying homemade Stanley Cups, as is so common in most other stadiums throughout the playoffs. Some of it is that Chicago hockey fans are WAY out of practice - we haven't regularly been going to the playoffs since the mid 90s.

But some of it is the simple lack of awareness of what was really happening. Hawks fans were taking each game as it was. Sure we overlooked the Preds a bit, but come Vancouver and San Jose, everything was about the game at hand. The Cup was the ultimate goal, but it didn't seem that much closer as an end point than it had during the regular season. The stakes were raised, but it still just felt like we had to win that night so that someday, down the road, we'd be able to lift that Cup.

Well, not that has seemed to change. Reality has set in and it's clear to us all that we're playing for the big prize. The thing many of us didn't think we'd ever get to, but had slowly started believing in with the start of the Rocky Wirtz era. And now we've had a whole week to get all hot and bothered over it all.

Here's the thing - if the Cup has suddenly become a very real possibility to us fans, it's probably become so to the players. These guys are human and for most of them, except Hossa, this is their first shot at truly winning a Cup. Sure, Kopecky and Ladd have before, but they weren't key pieces, as they'd be now. So the big question is how will these kids respond to their first upclose brush with the Cup?


If the Hawks are able to put it all out of their minds, not only the distraction but the false sense of their inevitability, then they will win this series. I have zero doubt of that. But if the hoopla proves to be too much, the Flyers, just like the Preds and the Canucks, will make them pay. Fail to show up a couple of times, catch a bad break, run into a stellar goalie performance... getting to four losses can come quick if you're giving games away.

However, I don't see that happening. I've got faith in the mental make-up of this team. Maybe one misstep this series, but not two. While they would dig themselves a hole by giving away a game, the Hawks are superior enough to overcome. And that's assuming the Flyers play their best hockey start to finish. With a journeyman goalie, a thin defensive corp, and an offense no better than what the Hawks have already shut down, I'm not counting on the Flyers bringing anything near the pressure the Sharks did for four straight.


So, to me, we're this close. The Hawks will not be denied IF they bring it every game. And what then? Well, I think this incredibly well done new commercial by the NHL pretty much sums up how we'll all feel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlHgRl2iHaA