Stanley Cup Preview – Blackhawks & Lightning

The Stanley Cup finals are set to kick off tomorrow night in Tampa Bay. Who has the edge going into the finals? The fresh faces in Tampa Bay or the Blackhawks who have certainly been here before?

The Chicago Blackhawks are in the middle of what some would call a dynasty. They have won two Stanley cup finals in the past 5 years and have reached the conference finals the past three years. I believe they need to win this trip to be called a dynasty, but either way the experience factor is clearly on their side.

The Lighting are significantly younger and have had little post season experience, but they are on a great run themselves and have home-ice advantage. The Lightning also have the playoff scoring leader in Tyler Johnson on their side. There are plenty of star players to go around on both sides, and really it is hard to see who has the true advantage.

This series has all the makings of a 7 game series. It should be an exciting series with the plethora of capable goal scorers on both sides. Also both goalies have struggled at times, compounding the fact that we could see some high scoring games. Overall this series looks pretty even and in the end it is hard to go against the experience factor of the Blackhawks. They are the type of team that could win a game 7 on the road in Tampa Bay, which is exactly what I believe will happen. Patrick Kane will come up huge and this series, and the Chicago Blackhawks will take home their third trophy in six years, winning in 7 games. It will be one of the best Stanley Cup finals we have seen in years.