Maybe Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews really has a plan to beat Lightning goalie Ben Bishop (and maybe he'll look like an in-his-prime Steve Yzerman while doing so) and maybe Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos really isn't concerned with his team's lack of experience heading into the Stanley Cup Finals, but all of that will cease to matter once the puck drops on Game One at 8 p.m. Wednesday night.
Two uber-talented teams, one seemingly on the way up, the other facing cap complications which could very well push them down, will take the ice and square off for the first time in a best-of-seven series to determine just who the best team in the NHL was this season.
If you're not near a TV or if you don't have cable, you can catch the game live online HERE.
The Blackhawks and Lightning don't have a ton of familiarity with one another, but they play a very similar game.
"It's one thing to look at video, but to actually get it in the game, from your perspective on the ice, is a lot different," Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford said Tuesday, via Brian Hedger of NHL.com. "There will be a little feeling out at the beginning, but we're well aware of what they do. They're a fast team with tons of skill. They play at high tempo. They have a five-man offensive attack. We almost play the same way. It's going to be a fun series."
For the Lightning, finding a way to stop the Blackhawks newly minted top line of Brandon Saad, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane will be their most monumental task. In Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against Anaheim, Chicago coach Joel Quenneville paired his top two players, Toews and Kane, who are usually on different units, on the same line to great effect - Toews scored twice and Saad scored once.
"The opportunity that we have is right there in front of us," Toews said. "This is the last series. We want to have a great start to it. So that is something that we can definitely focus on, is just having that desperation that we've had late in the series and applying that right off the start."
At least one analyst believes Stamkos isn't lying when he says all the prior Cup Finals experience the Blackhawks are toting with them into the series - eight Hawks players have two Cup wins and another eight have one - matters less than most would have you believe.
"What's interesting is the contrast between the Dead Puck Era and the Lockout Era. The parity effect of the salary cap has driven down team win percentages and has caused a carousel of rotating players and Cup winners. Teams that have won have much less experience than before because teams are gutted after Cup victories making it harder to compete consistently," writes Dominik Luszczyszyn of The Hockey News.
"That could be the reason experience hasn't carried the same weight. Roster turnover means Cup teams can't keep the same lineup intact and they usually become weaker as a result. That's what happened to Chicago after their first Cup win, and it's another reason to be impressed by the fact that they're back in the final again."
As Luszczyszyn notes, since 1994-95, 11 of the last 19 Cup finals have been won by the team with more games of playoff experience, so it seems the numbers bear out that the experience does have a bearing on the serious outcome, but just not in as significant a manner as you'd otherwise believe.
The increased parity since the lockout really has this series looking like a toss-up. The Blackhawks are more seasoned, but the Lightning, as Stamkos noted, have gone through the ringer already during these playoffs - there's not much they haven't seen to this point (other than the pressure of a Cup finals, of course).
The Blackhawks are probably a little deeper up front and a little stronger on the back end, to they seem to have an edge, but Bishop is the kind of goaltender who can take over a series if he gets hot.
In the end, it's tough to call a winner, but as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told HNGN last month, there's one thing we can all hope for - excitement.
