I’ve tried voodoo dolls. I’ve tried playing with an Ouija board. I’ve gone to a tarot card reader and I even altered my picks so much so that I effectively lost the picks competition again this year. But its ok I thought, as long as Pittsburgh loses it will be all worth it. Well not only did I sacrifice my picks, but the Penguins are headed to the Cup for the second straight year. So hopefully, much like last year, the Red Wings will dominate the Pens again en route to another championship for HockeyTown.

I’ll be honest. I watched about two minutes combined of the Eastern Conference Finals. I figured it was wise to benefit my personal health and avoid watching the series altogether. Last Friday night I got that hockey itch and turned the game on, only to turn it off about 80 seconds later when Sidney Crosby had already put Pittsburgh up 1-0. What can I say? The Penguins are good. There, I hope everyone is happy.

(I still don't understand how changing a coach mid-season can be the real reason for this. I say they were tanking it till the switch was made.)

On the other hand it looks like the Hurricanes luck finally ran out. FINALLY. After several lucky wins and even more lucky bounces, karma finally caught up with the Canes. Lucky for them, nobody really cares.

The Blackhawks somewhat disappointed their fans, although I’m not sure if anybody really expected them to win. Their goaltending has been suspect for most of the post-season and a team like Detroit is way too good to not take advantage. Of course, it helps when Brian Campbell tries to be fancy and ends up giving away a game like he did in Game Two. I’m willing to bet the majority of ‘Hawks fans aren’t exactly celebrating Campbell’s big contract one season later.

So here we go; the end is finally near. One more series and we can officially put a wrap on the NHL season and move on to off-season activities. Free agency starts July 1^st and before we know it, pre-season will be in full swing. But before all that, let’s break down the Cup Finals between Detroit and Pittsburgh.

Forwards: Leading the way for Detroit has been Johan Franzen with 19 points in the playoffs. Henrik Zetterberg is following closely behind him with 18 points. Dan Cleary and Valtteri Filppula have 14 and Marian Hossa has tallied 12 points.

Pittsburgh has been led by the obvious tandem of Crosby and Malkin. Both players have 28 points and then there is a dramatic dropoff with Bill Guerin the next in line with 14. Chris Kunitz has 12 and Ruslan Fedotenko has 11.

Advantage: Push. Pittsburgh obviously has immediate impact. Crosby and Malkin are two of the top three players in the league right now. Detroit has an overall advantage in depth. Every single line they roll out has legit goal scorers, where as Pittsburgh is still letting Miroslav Satan’s corpse take the ice. Not to mention the fact that Marian Hossa plays for Detroit. He literally spurned Pittsburgh last off-season because he wanted a legit chance to win a Cup. Don’t think that won’t carry any weight in this series. He’ll be extra motivated to finally win, while Pittsburgh will want to prove him wrong. I have a bad feeling that karma will show it’s ugly head because of this.

Defense: Monitoring the blue line for Detroit is Nicklas Lidstrom (13 points), Brian Rafalski (8), Niklas Kronwall (7), Brad Stuart (7), Brett Lebda (6) and Jonathan Ericsson (5).

Pittsburgh lines up with Sergei Gonchar (12 points), Kris Letang (9), Mark Eaton (6), Brooks Orpik (4), Rob Scuderi (3) and Hal Gill (2).

Advantage: Detroit. Not only do they have more scoring power than Pittsburgh, they have a ton more experience. Look no further than Captain Nicklas Lidstrom. Assuming Detroit can stay healthy…well that’s another story.

Goaltending: Detroit comes into the series with Chris Osgood starting and former Penguin Ty Conklin riding the bench. I haven’t been very high on Osgood this season and with good reason, but he has done well enough to led the Wings this far. He has a 2.06 GAA and .925 save percentage so far in the playoffs to go along with his 12-4 record.

Pittsburgh has Marc-Andre Fleury between the pipes. In between his over the top flashy saves, he has racked up a 12-5 record, 2.62 GAA and .906 save percentage. While he has been shaky at times this year, he seems to know when to step it up. Pittsburgh left him out to dry several times and he literally won them the game which is about all you can ask of a franchise goalie.

Advantage: Push. When I originally wrote the article I was going to give the advantage to Pittsburgh because Chris Osgood doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. But after researching the numbers and realizing that Osgood has been better than Fleury in every category, I changed it to a push. Osgood still doesn’t fill me with confidence, but he must be doing something right.

Coaching: Mike Babcock is behind the bench for Detroit and Dan Bylsma is behind the bench for Pittsburgh. Babcock has an obvious advantage in terms of experience and championships; however Bylsma should get credit for getting Pittsburgh this far. When he initially took over in mid-season, the Penguins were on the outside of the playoffs looking in. That is quite a feat, but if you ask me I’m not overly impressed. I get the impression that Pittsburgh was essentially quitting on former coach Michel Therrien and that anybody could’ve came in and turned things around. I’ll be a believer if they win the Cup…and stay equally as dominant next season.

Advantage: Detroit

My Pick: Detroit in 6