All too often in the NHL, we see top seeds end up getting cracked before the Stanley Cup Finals.
This year, we've got a pair of teams who didn't win their divisions battling it out for the most coveted trophy in sports, as the Tampa Bay Lightning collide with the Chicago Blackhawks.
SERIES SCHEDULE
Game 1: Chicago at Tampa Bay (6/3, 8:00 p.m. ET, NBC)
Game 2: Chicago at Tampa Bay (6/6, 7:15 p.m. ET, NBC)
Game 3: Tampa Bay at Chicago (6/8, 8:00 p.m. ET, NBCSN)
Game 4: Tampa Bay at Chicago (6/10, 8:00 p.m. ET, NBCSN)
Game 5: Chicago at Tampa Bay (6/13, 8:00 p.m. ET, NBC, If Necessary)
Game 6: Tampa Bay at Chicago (6/15, 8:00 p.m. ET, NBC, If Necessary)
Game 7: Chicago at Tampa Bay (6/17, 8:00 p.m. ET, NBC, If Necessary)
ODDS ANALYSIS
Before you even looked at the odds for this series, the one thing that you knew was going to be truth was that things were going to be tight. Chicago is the very slight -129 favorite to win the Stanley Cup from here, which is a bit of a surprise considering the fact that the Bolts have the home ice advantage.
KEY PLAYERS
The Lightning have a ton of team speed throughout their lineup, and if there is a man who can match that speed for the Blackhawks, it's Patrick Kane. Kane moved over to place alongside Jonathan Toews often at the end of the Anaheim series, and it made all the difference in the world. All of a sudden, Chicago has a line which could really cause havoc to the Triplets with their speed and ability to break in a hurry. Between these two studs, the Blackhawks have gotten 19 goals and 19 assists here this postseason.
Still, Tyler Johnson is playing with his hair on fire. He has proven that he can be a tough guy and bang on the boards as well as crash the net. He's got a knack for being in just the right spot, and his 12 goals this postseason shows just that.
KEY STATS
.970: Ben Bishop's save percentage in two games against the Blackhawks this year. Duplicating that success would be tough, but remember that this is a man who now has two shutouts in Game 7s in the same playoffs, making him the third man in NHL history to have pulled such a feat.
81.3 percent: Chicago's penalty kill percentage against Anaheim in the Western Conference Finals. The problem the Blackhawks really had wasn't taking too many penalties, as they only had 16 in the seven games. Their kill rate wasn't great against a pretty bad power play unit, and if that doesn't improve, Tampa Bay, which has scored on 14 of its last 27 power play chances, will prove lethal.
ANALYSIS & PREDICTION
It would be a sin if this series did anything but go seven games as great as these playoffs have been.
Chicago doesn't have the home ice advantage, but it does have the distinct advantage of playing at this level several times.
The Blackhawks have the better of the goaltending battle as we see it as well, as we just don't know if Bishop is going to end up playing his best when he gets peppered by this Chicago attack. He has been great at times but woeful at others, and if the woeful Bishop rears his ugly head in this series even once, that might be too much for the Bolts to overcome.
Chicago Blackhawks in 7 games
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