The Journey

has ended for the Philadelphia Flyers. Pittsburgh creamed their crosstown counterparts 6-0 in Game 5 of this Pennsylvanian Civil War. Fortunately, no Montreal-esque riots occurred.

The SuperPens have earned the right to be in the Stanley Cup Finals for 2008, and honestly, who didn't think they could make it? The only other team from the East that could have been a match was the Montreal Canadiens, and the fact is that Carey Price just wasn't ready compared to Marc-Andre Fluery.

Now, either team coming from the West has strong goaltending. Some might say that this is a worry for the Penguins, who's strong point is the number of goals on the scoreboard.
Look again, and you'll see that Martin Biron, Henrik Lundqvist, and Martin Gerber weren't exactly weak goaltenders either. Lundqvist is a Vezina candidate, as a matter of fact. So the fact that the Penguins had five players with five goals or more, and only five players without a goal, is quite impressive.

So my prediction is that, assuming they don't win the Cup, the Stanley Cup Final will go to seven games because the Pittsburgh Penguins can score so much.


On another thought: The 33-year magic didn't apply to the Flyers, who could have been the second team to come back from 0-3 against Pittsburgh (the '75 Islanders were the first). The question is, will Dallas be the second team to come back from 0-3 against Detroit? They're halfway there, having taken the series to game 6, which is in Dallas tonight. Can they do it? Find out at 8:00 P.M. ET, exclusively on Versus, the (not-so-awesome) broadcasting-rights owner of the NHL.

STARS RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!