Stanley Cup

The puck drops on the NHL season on Thursday night when the Boston Bruins crank up their 2010-11 Stanley Cup banner to the rafters before their home opener against the Philadelphia Flyers at the TD Garden. The Capitals had the skills to hold such a celebration this fall, but they didn't show as much heart and grit as the Tampa Bay Lightning in last year's playoffs and were swept to Washington-area dance clubs after Round 2. Washington general manager George McPhee resisted the urge to make radical changes to his roster.

Feeling a little blue Gary R. Blockus The Morning Call In a severely shortened season, health will be more important than ever in the quest to hoist Lord Stanley's Cup. Look for the Blueshirts and Blue Notes to tangle in the final games for hockey's Holy Grail. The Rangers, with newly acquired Rick Nash ready to ride shotgun for Brad Richards, have to be considered the team to beat in the Eastern Conference. With Henrik Lundqvist in goal, there could be no stopping the Broadway Blueshirts.

Wings' last shot at glory Helene Elliott Los Angeles Times The cardinal rule of NHL forecasting is never pick the San Jose Sharks to win the Stanley Cup. They've been a popular selection the past few seasons but they've tripped themselves up every spring — and will this season too. The Vancouver Canucks seem to be the consensus pick in the West, but their lack of team toughness leaves them vulnerable....

NHLPA wins, fans lose Harvey Fialkov Sun Sentinel NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and the greedy owners got their 50-50 hockey-related revenue split, a 7 percent decrease for the players. But NHLPA leader Donald Fehr got the better of the deal on maximum length of contracts, next year's $64.3 million salary cap and a more defined pension plan. The empty rinks stuck it to arena workers and ancillary businesses that depend on game-day patronage. Bettman stuck a knife into the backs of new TV partners by wiping out 480 games, including All-Star weekend and the Winter Classic.

Cursed Kings will win Helene Elliott Los Angeles Times Hell will freeze over, because the Kings will win the Stanley Cup. Yes, the cursed Kings, the team that has made exactly one previous visit to the Cup finals. They're bigger than the Devils, they hit harder, they have a better defense and coach Darryl Sutter has been to the finals before, losing in seven games with the 2004 Flames. Unlike the Kings' first three series, this one is likely to go long, but the result will be the same.

Hawks' Buff too tough Helene Elliott Los Angeles Times Remember this name: Dustin Byfuglien (pronounced BUFF-lin). If the Blackhawks' beefy power forward can be as effective as he was throughout their Western Conference final sweep of the Sharks, the Stanley Cup will reside in Chicago for the first time since 1961. Remember this name: Chris Pronger. Though the Flyers defenseman isn't as mean as he used to be, he's still menacing and might be the only man strong enough to budge Byfuglien away from the net. That could stop Chicago's top line of Byfuglien, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews or create chances for Kane and the magnificent Toews.

DETROIT -- It rained octopuses in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals between the Detroit Red Wings and the New Jersey Devils, and there is every indication it will rain octopuses even larger in Game 2.Tomorrow at noon, Kevin Dean, who co-owns Superior Fish with his brothers Michael and David, will auction for charity Stanley, a 52-pound octopus, and his younger brother, Oscar, 36 pounds."

RYE, N.Y. -- New York Rangers coach Mike Keenan sits in his office in the Playland Ice Casino contemplating the question.The defending Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens are gone from the playoffs, and so are the Pittsburgh Penguins, two-time Cup winners who were among the favorites this season.Can Keenan see the road to the Stanley Cup opening up before his eyes?"You can't even assume that," he said, as a film of Game 7 in the New Jersey-Buffalo series played on a nearby television.

PITTSBURGH -- They've been here before, at this 3-1 junction in a Stanley Cup playoff series against the Pittsburgh Penguins. And the Washington Capitals have come out of it with mixed results. But as they prepared for today's showdown here at the Civic Arena, past failures seemed not to apply."Have the Caps lost a 3-1 series?" said Washington rookie goalie Jim Carey. "I'm new to this. You can be up 3-0 and lose. I'm sure it's happened somewhere in the NHL before. But I'd rather be in our shoes than theirs.

Bernie Parent says he remembers clearly the last game of the 1973-74 Stanley Cup finals against the Boston Bruins. There were five minutes to go, and the score was 1-0. Parent was in goal for the Philadelphia Flyers."

No threat to Classic Chris Kuc Chicago Tribune A debate rages between the optimistic side of me (rarely used) and the pessimistic side (hello, old friend) when it comes to the NHL lockout. I'd say cooler heads will eventually prevail, but neither side is looking particularly frosty at this point. So I'm putting the over/under on the end of the lockout at Dec. 1. It's right around then that many of the players will realize they haven't received a paycheck in a while and the league will start eyeballing the possibility of losing the big-time payday of the Winter Classic on Jan. 1 at cavernous Michigan Stadium.

The puck drops on the NHL season on Thursday night when the Boston Bruins crank up their 2010-11 Stanley Cup banner to the rafters before their home opener against the Philadelphia Flyers at the TD Garden. The Capitals had the skills to hold such a celebration this fall, but they didn't show as much heart and grit as the Tampa Bay Lightning in last year's playoffs and were swept to Washington-area dance clubs after Round 2. Washington general manager George McPhee resisted the urge to make radical changes to his roster.

Canucks take it in 6 Helene Elliott Los Angeles Times It's incredible to think that no team based in Canada has won the Stanley Cup since 1993, when a certain illegal stick carried by a certain member of the Kings reversed the tide after the Kings had won the opener and launched the Canadiens to a five-game series win. The drought is about to end. Lord Stanley's trophy will take up residence in Canada within the next...

Slide over, Pekka Rinne. We now have a new best save of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs courtesy of Boston's Tim Thomas, who robbed Tampa Bay's Steve Downie with a sprawling paddle save in the third period Monday. That "lucky" save helped the Bruins secure a 3-2 series lead in the Eastern Conference finals. After a shot from the point missed the net and caromed off the end boards toward the crease, the Bruins' All-Star goalie dove back from the top of his paint and rejected Downie's point-blank shot.

Wings' last shot at glory Helene Elliott Los Angeles Times The cardinal rule of NHL forecasting is never pick the San Jose Sharks to win the Stanley Cup. They've been a popular selection the past few seasons but they've tripped themselves up every spring — and will this season too. The Vancouver Canucks seem to be the consensus pick in the West, but their lack of team toughness leaves them vulnerable....

The meek inherited the East, if not the earth, in the playoffs last spring. The top-seeded Capitals were upset by the eighth-seeded Canadiens, who then eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins. In the conference finals the Canadiens faced the seventh-seeded Flyers, who had upset the Devils and rallied from an 0-3 deficit against the Bruins to become only the third team in Stanley Cup playoff history to erase that deficit in a best-of-seven series. The Flyers won the East but lost the Cup finals to the Blackhawks in six games.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The underappreciated New Jersey Devils, whom few gave a chance of beating the more talented Detroit Red Wings, completed a four-game sweep of the Red Wings with a 5-2 victory last night and danced the champions' dance, holding the Stanley Cup aloft for everyone to see."All that stuff about how we play hockey can now go in the trash," said Claude Lemieux, who was voted the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the Most Valuable Player throughout the playoffs. "If you don't like our style, well too bad. You can go watch a show somewhere else."

CHICAGO — As part of a morning pep talk, Flyers coach Peter Laviolette told his players that they had prepared and labored for 10 months to reach this point of the season.Veteran winger Ian Laperriere piped up that he had waited 15 years for this opportunity. Blackhawks fans might remind them that they've endured 49 years hoping for a Stanley Cup trophy to make a trip to Chicago. Both teams played with plenty of pent up emotion in a bombs-away scoring-spree Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals on Saturday night at the United Center with the Blackhawks walking away with an 6-5 victory.