At the start of this season, the players of thirty teams all hoped to be playing in the Stanley Cup Finals. Only two teams remain after battling through nearly 100 games. The Nashville Predators, after battling through the murderer’s row of the Western Conference Playoffs, have proven themselves worthy to fight the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins for the right to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup.
It only makes sense that Pittsburgh would be the final test. In the first round, the Predators drew the Chicago Blackhawks, a team that has won three cups in the last seven years, establishing a salary-cap era dynasty.