Stanley Cup is Set - Red Wings and Penguins Championship Pick

There are plenty of statistics to digest in regards to the upcoming Red Wings-Penguins Stanley Cup Finals series to determine which team has the best chance of winning.

On one hand, the Penguins have had the best offense in the playoffs with a goals per game average of 3.82. On the other hand, the Red Wings have given up by far the fewest goals per game with an average of 2.13. So taking statistics out of the equations, what might prove to be the X-factor in this series is the Red Wings franchise and their history of winning. Oftentimes, historical statistics aren’t quite as applicable as people think they are, but not in this case.

Another obscure, yet note worth stat is that the Red Wings have not lost a single playoff series to an opponent in the same time zone since back in 1995. That year they were beaten by the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup Finals, a team that was a pioneer of sorts in terms of their slow-it-down, neutral zone-trap style, which caught Detroit off guard.

Other than that series, the Wings have only lost to west coast teams like Anaheim, San Jose, and Calgary as well as Colorado, the latter a big-time rival and one of the few franchises that has come close to assembling the kind of consistent talent bases that the Red Wings have in the past 15 years or so.

What that means is that the Red Wings, who have won four Stanley Cups in that span, typically don’t lose when they’re well-rested and on a familiar schedule.

Traveling far for playoff games has a tendency of leveling the playing field, if not giving the home team an advantage, in just about every sport. Take college football for instance, in which Big Ten and Pac-10 teams often schedule home and home two-game series that usually see the home team win each time (Iowa and Arizona State and Michigan and Washington being recent examples).

While Pittsburgh is an extremely talented team that boasts co-playoff-leading scorers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, they will be hard-pressed to match the kind of depth the Wings can throw at them in the finals.

The Red Wings are a -150 to +120 favorite for winning the series, which begins Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and it’s a little surprising that they aren’t bigger favorites to many people.

That could have a lot to do with the Wings’ injuries, as Pavel Datsyuk, Nicklas Lidstrom, Jonathan Ericcson, and Kris Draper have all been hurt.

But guys like Dan Cleary and young Darren Helm, who scored the game winner against Chicago in Game 5, have stepped up and shown incredible flashes of talent for the Red Wings in bigger roles.

Pittsburgh has been pretty balanced as well, however, and it’s certainly not a bad thing that Crosby and Malkin are playing world-class hockey right now.

Bill Guerin has added an element of toughness to the Penguins this season that might have been missing in last years’ Stanley Cup Finals loss to Detroit.

Marc-Andre Fleury has also been dominant in goal for Pittsburgh, including the Penguins’ series-clinching win over Carolina in which he stopped 30 of 31 shots.