Tonight, the 2008-2009 season will officially and finally close.  It's been a long run, since the opening days of training camp in September, to the trip to Sweden to start the season, to the first-half morass in which the Pens were ensnared, to the hiring of Bylsma and the trades of Kunitz and Guerin.  It's been a long, challenging road.  Three tough series, the second-rounder being the hardest and most exciting - and nerve-wracking.  Another Finals series against the powerful Detroit Red Wings, and this time they've pushed the Wings to a seventh and deciding game.

In many ways, this rematch feels correct.  Both teams are laden with the best, or among the best, at their positions.  Both teams have goalies that are ho-hum during the year (leading to constant questioning), who then turn it on in the late season and playoffs.  The Pens have Crosby and Malkin, probably the 1-2 centers in the NHL.  Detroit counters with Zetterberg and Datsyuk, and if they're not 3-4 then I don't know who is.  The Wings play better defense, the Pens the better offense.  The Wings have perennial Norris Trophy winner Nik Lidstrom, and there's no better defenseman in the league.  It's not bone-crushing hits that makes him so good - it's his intelligence and sense for the game, the way that he denies ice and passing lanes with his big body and active stick.  It's guys like Darren Helm who (oh, by the way) scare the HELL out of me every time he touches the puck.  He's easily the fastest guy on the ice.  It's Cleary and Holstrom and yes, even Hossa.  The Wings are loaded, and they've had a dominant run for the past few years.  This rematch was necessary, and should Pittsburgh find a way to win it, you'll have to look at this as a passing of the torch. 

For Detroit, their season has been quiet but steady - another 50-win, 100+ point season.  Ho-hum.  Mike Babcock barely needs to coach this team - with such an experienced and deep group, they self-police better than he can.  Yes, he's doing the matchups and exploiting the weaknesses, but actually coaching the team, working with the team?  He doesn't need to do much because they all do it.  All of them, from the newest, youngest winger who sits back and watches and learns to Lidstrom and Datsyuk and Zetterberg who lead by example.  Maybe they don't have players on their team that are stuck in front of cameras every night, but they are super stars nevertheless.

Detroit will hold all of the advantages tonight.  They've earned it with their better regular season.  History works against Pittsburgh - they've never fared well at the Joe in this or last year.  They're trying to be the first team in over 30 years to not only come back to win the Cup after starting the series in an 0-2 hole, but also attempting to win a seventh and deciding game on the road.  If Bob Smizek of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is correct, then the last away team to win a seventh and final game of any kind in any sport is the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team.  Yes, it can be done.  Can, and will, are vastly different words. 

Pens and Wings fans will be nervous this evening.  But tomorrow, both fans can reflect on a great season.  One group of fans will see their season tinged with a negative ending, and that will linger for some time while the other will celebrate.  The Stanley Cup is the most difficult trophy to win in all of sports.  It's the most cherished trophy, and winning it requires more than just dedication and skill.  Because it's so difficult to win it, the Cup represents all the other things that go into winning a championship.  The time, dedication, pain and other things.  Tonight one team's captain will joyously lift the Cup over his head and experience those feelings.  His heart will pound and his arms will be tired, yet that Cup will be lifted aloft as if it weighed a feather.  It will be his for a period of time, and he's earned that right.  He'll turn and hand it to teammates, and then they'll skate around the ice, celebrating.  Role players get a chance to hold that Cup, and the joy they'll feel won't be any more or less than that of the Captain. 

Will it be Marian Hossa?  He, who opted to sign with Detroit believing that the Wings gave him the best opportunity to win a Cup?  He will find redemption and joy, but perhaps more relief than anything else. 

Will it be the NHL's wonderkids Sid and Geno?  The NHL would dearly love that, because then they get to market the two kids even more heavily, and showing pictures of Crosby with that Cup will be great for them.

Will it be Bill Guerin, who won the Cup with the Devils in 1995, and hasn't been back since.  His mid-season trade from the hell that is the New York Islanders to the Cup-winning Penguins would be a stunning turn of events.

Will Nik Lidstrom lift the Cup again, and in so doing cement his legacy as one of the all-time greatest defenseman to ever play the game?

Or will it be one of the two goalies, guys who have played bad games and given up soft goals, and then the next night played out of this world hockey? 

Tonight at 8:15, the puck will drop.  The 60 minutes of hockey will commence.  I can hardly wait.  I get the feeling that it will be a close game.  I don't think the Pens will be in awe of the JLA any more.  I don't think Fleury will have a bad game.  So that means these two teams will simply have to outwork the other.  Win or lose, in my opinion, that's how it's supposed to be. 

GO PENS!!!