The Stanley Cup Final has noted predictive geniuses like yours truly in an interesting spot.
At the start of the playoffs, the pick here was Blackhawks over Lightning in six. Now that the matchup has come to pass, though, we're getting pulled in two directions. The first: It'd be nice, for posterity's sake, to be correct from the start. (Ignore the team Chicago was supposed to beat in the Western Conference final.)
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The other, though, is a nagging feeling that, for a variety of reasons, Tampa Bay has a better shot than we initially thought. Is it worth reversing course so close to the finish line? These are the questions we're asking along the way.
Which Ben Bishop shows up? One popular, not-incorrect statement making the rounds is that the Lightning goalie, in his first postseason as a starter, has proven himself, silenced the doubters, et al. To an extent, that's understandable; overall, he's carrying a .920 save percentage and a pair of Game 7 shutouts.
"He's been huge for us ever since he got here," Tampa Bay forward Tyler Johnson said after Bishop's 22-save, series-deciding night against the Rangers. He also shut them out in Game 5. "He's one of those guys that you just have confidence in, and he is just back there, and it just really helps you," Johnson said. "There are so many times when we just put him out to dry and he just kind of makes those saves for us."
The problem, though, is that Tampa needed Bishop to come up big in Game 7 because of ... Bishop. Besides the shutouts, he allowed five goals on three separate occasions against New York. Call him "Grab Bag."
In that way, he's not unlike other goaltenders, including opponent Corey Crawford. Beyond the position's super-elite, performance varies more than most are comfortable admitting, which makes predicting best-of-7 series inherently silly. If Bishop were better than bad in three of Tampa's games against New York, or worse than great in two of them, the series would've taken an entirely different route. If he comes up flat as often against Chicago, the odds aren't in Tampa's favor.
Good as Bishop has been, the Lightning need him to be better — or, failing that, more consistent. Whether that happens is anyone's guess.
Can the Blackhawks' defense hold up? We delved into this during the Chicago-Anaheim series; the Blackhawks, still, are skating four defenseman that actually seem to hold the coach's confidence. In a perfect world, would Duncan Keith be playing half of every game? Probably not.
That said, there's no real reason to believe that Keith, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Brent Seabrook and Johnny Oduya are going to, all of a sudden, derail. They've clearly got the ability to deal with the dreaded "heavy team"; Few teams fit the descriptor better than Anaheim, and Chicago navigated that as well as could be expected. Throw in some favorable scheduling — Chicago will have three days to rest before Game 1, two before Game 2 and another two, potentially, before Game 5 — and the fatigue factor is less of a concern.
Is there an answer for Steven Stamkos? "The Triplets" have been as good as advertised. Tyler Johnson (12), Nikita Kucherov (nine) and Ondrej Palat (seven) have combined for 28 of the Lightning's 55 goals. Still, one-line teams don't win Cups, and the Lightning needed Steven Stamkos to be himself. Mission accomplished.
The best goal-scorer on Earth looked frustrated in the first round against Detroit. As tends to happen, though, he's course-corrected in a big way, putting up seven goals and 14 assists in his last 12 games against Montreal and the Rangers.
If Keith and Hjalmarsson stick together and play the way they did against Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, the Stamkos-Valtteri Filppula-Alex Killorn line will have to hold up their end of the bargain. At this point, betting against that would be unwise.
Can Tampa win the special-teams battle? In April, Chicago's penalty kill (83.4 percent) would've held something of an edge over Tampa's power play (18.8 percent). Things have changed, though. Palat leads the NHL with four power-play goals, Kucherov is tied for second with three and the Lighting, as a team, have 16 in 72 chances. Chicago, meanwhile, has dipped to a 75.5 percent on the kill.
That, maybe more than anything, is the biggest reason to think Tampa has a better shot at pulling this off than we originally thought. A solid power play isn't necessary to win a Cup, but it certainly helps, and what the Lightning are working with now inspires a lot more confidence.
Will the Lightning's top pair neutralize Chicago's forward depth? Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman are a blast to watch. Hedman is 6-6, 24 years old and seems to figure stuff out more by the day. Stralman, meanwhile, is solid enough to elicit whispered Nicklas Lidstrom comparisons. They're great.
"Anton can play with anybody, he really can," Lightning assistant coach Rick Bowness told NHL.com during the Eastern Conference final. "When you have that much hockey sense and that much vision, you can play with anybody. Victor has got incredible abilities himself, but Anton is always just where he is supposed to be."
Together, they control possession at 5-on-5 against top competition, limit chances and start things for the forwards. In short, they're capable of winning the battle against any line they face. The time could be right for Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville to break up the Brandon Saad-Jonathan Toews-Patrick Kane group, if only to increase the firepower on the second line. He's going to have to play someone against Hedman and Stralman, and spreading the wealth a little more throughout the lineup is one way to deal with that.
One thing's certain, though; Chicago has the edge up front. The Lightning are largely a two-line team, opting to rotate five forwards along their third and fourth. Some combination of Patrick Sharp, Teuvo Teravainen, Antoine Vermette and Bryan Bickell is going to be in a position to make a difference, and Chicago could well need it.
Does any of this matter? Not really. Hockey is chaotic by nature, and short series often unfold in ways that don't line up with underlying numbers, especially when teams seem as evenly matched as these two. It's easy to imagine this one coming down to bounces and goalie play. Good luck with that.
So, we might as well stay consistent. If it works out, we can say we were right all along. Blackhawks in six.