FanHouse

It's been sixteen years since Mario Lemieux lifted the Stanley Cup high in Chicago Stadium, celebrating the Penguins' second consecutive championship. The franchise has hit a lot of ups and downs since that 6-5 win over the Blackhawks, nearly reaching the finals again in 1996 and 2002 and nearly fading into oblivion in 1999 and again in 2007.

Now that the team is back in the Finals, the question on every Pittsburgher's mind is, "Can they win it?" They're not the favorites and they're facing a much tougher task than they have in any of the first three rounds against the star-laden, veteran Detroit Red Wings. Given the lack of overlap between the conferences and the relative ease with which both teams dominated clearly inferior opponents in the playoffs, I can't tell you if the Penguins are going to win (also, I'm a Pens' fan and there's no way I'm jinxing this). What I can do is give you five solid reasons that the Penguins CAN win the Cup.

1. Evgeni Malkin- Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby get all the press, but there hasn't been a better player in the NHL than Malkin since mid-January. In the 21 games Crosby missed, Malkin scored 36 points. In the second half of the year, he's got 60. With Crosby back in the playoffs, Malkin hasn't missed a beat. Through Game 1 in the Flyers series, he had eight goals and nine assists. The Flyers targeted him from that point on, beat him up pretty good, and he only managed one goal and one assist in the final four games of the series, but with a week off he should be ready to go for the Finals. Sidney Crosby is the media darling, but Malkin is the guy that almost every Penguin fan wants with the puck on his stick in the last minutes of a close game.

2. Sidney Crosby and Marian Hossa- For a while it looked like Sid and Hossa might never synch up. Both opened the playoffs playing at incredibly high levels, but they were seemingly just missing each other. It was obvious the linemates weren't quite comfortable, yet. By the time the Flyers' series started, however, the story was quite different. Hossa torched the Flyers for four goals and five assists in the five games, while Crosby racked up two and five. It's obvious for anyone to see that these two world class talents are on the same page right now and that's bad news for opponents.

3. The USS Hal Gill and his fleet- At the trade deadline, the Penguins acquisition of Hal Gill for a second and fifth round pick was a real head-scratcher. Gill's mostly a journeyman defenseman who's never had any real success anywhere in his career. Of course, he joined a group that also features Brooks Orpik, who was better known for his hitting than his actual defense, Sergei Gonchar, who's not known for his defense at all, Rob Scuderi, who's had a rather Gill-like career, and the young Kris Letang and Ryan Whitney. Somehow, Michel Therrien has molded this motley crew into a great defensive unit. The Pens erased Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley from the ice in their first round series, held Jaromir Jagr in check and didn't let anyone else in blue and red step up in the second round, and silenced the scoring hot RJ Umberger and Scotty Hartnell in the third round. Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg present a significant challenge for any defensive corps, but if anyone's up to the task of shutting them down it's the Penguins' blue-liners.

4. Marc-Andre Fleury- Time for a brief personal interlude. Back in the fall of 2003, I was a freshman in college at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. When the Penguins played their first game in early October, a couple of friends and I walked over to the Arena (literally a ten minute walk), stood in the Student Rush line, and scored some solid B-level seats to the Pens/Kings game. When the team skated out on the ice, a gawky looking kid in bright yellow pads stood between the pipes for the Pens. It was Marc-Andre Fleury, who my friends and I quickly realized was our age. He put on an amazing performance, stopping shots and sliding around like a gymnast, at one point even turning back a penalty shot. When it was all said and done, the kid had made 46 saves in front of a porous defense and still lost 3-0. The incredible raw talent that Fleury posses has been evident since day one in the league. It hasn't been an easy road getting him to fulfill that promise, but he's been outstanding in these playoffs. If he wasn't overshadowed by the two huge stars that center this team's top two lines, he'd almost certainly be the leading Conn Smythe contender right now.

5. Depth- This team can beat you in 100 ways. They've got two lines that are as good as almost any other line in the league, which has posed match-up problems for every one they've played so far in these playoffs. The Flyers were almost possessed by not getting beaten by Malkin after he destroyed them in the first game, and they instead got beaten by everyone else. Their third line features Jordan Staal, who's quietly turning into a star in these playoffs, flanked by Adam Hall and Jarkko Ruutu. Even their fourth line, Tyler Kennedy/Gary Roberts, Maxime Talbot, and Big Georges Laraque, is skating well enough that Michel Therrien can confidently put them on the ice. They've gotten big goals in these playoffs from almost every one. Simply put, there's no time during the game that the Wings can sleep on the Penguins because every line possess the ability to score.