Lord Stanley's Pool 2013 - Opening Analysis

The return of Sidney Crosby, added to a stacked Penguins roster that already includes former scoring champ Evgeni Malkin, has made Pittsburgh a favourite to win the Cup. Does this sound familiar? It should because it was ripped off from the opening line of last year's analysis. But this time there is a twist. While Pittsburgh is the favourite with 94 of the pool's 247 Cup picks, it is Chicago (72 Cup picks), led by Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, that is the most popular team in the pool with 577 players picked, to the Penguins' 545.

Between them, two-thirds of the Cup picks are covered, and they dominate the player selections like no other dual favourites since 2001. Chicago's 577 picks is over 78% of possible selections (at three per entry), the highest since Colorado had 91% and New Jersey 82% in '01. Pittsburgh's 74% (545 selections) has otherwise only been beaten twice since that year. And other than that fateful year, no other pool has had two teams at over 70%.

It is curious that Chicago has the edge on player picks when the Penguins have a strong lead in Cup picks, 94-72. One would expect it to be the other way around, with the Hawks dominant in winning games during the season but the Penguins having more firepower up front. For some reason poolies have decided that Pittsburgh would win the final round against Chicago but with the Hawks racking up more points along the way.

The flip side of the dominance of the dual favourites is the parity among the remaining teams. No other team has 30% of picks - third place is Washington with 28.5% (211 picks) and beyond that, Los Angeles (18%, 136) and Anaheim (17%, 124). This is the lowest ever popularity for third and fourth place teams in the pool. But numerous other teams are in the mix with them including Boston, Rangers, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Detroit.

Marc-Andre Fleury is on top of the goalie picks for the second year in a row - with 56 picks (22.7%) down from 61 last year. But tied with him as co-leader is Corey Crawford. They have the lowest pick rates of any goaltending leaders in the pool's history, evidently in a trend away from picking your goalie from the teams you expect in the finals. Crawford of course has shared time with Ray Emery (who once took the Sens to the finals) while Fleury is not known as a shutout goalie - and there are so many Pens players who rack up points at forward positions.

There are no less than seven goalies with over 10 picks and a dozen or more who can make an impact on the standings - this even discounting excellent goaltenders in Anaheim, St.Louis, and Vancouver. The goaltending battle has never been so wide open.

Among the more prominent goalies with a solid hold on their position between the pipes are Henrik Lundqvist (24), with his third consecutive time in the top three, as well as Jonathan Quick (21) and Tuukka Rask (16).

Time was, Roberto Luongo would be a dominant pick among goalies - with four years in the top three including first in 2011 - until he dropped to fifth last year as signals were being given that Cory Schneider would take over in the pipes. And that he did in last year's playoffs. This year with Schneider wresting the #1 goalie spot for the Canucks in the second half of the season, and coming into the playoffs as one of the strongest goalies in the league, he was taken only 6 times as was listed 12th, while Luongo was not taken at all. Should Schneider have been passed over in favour of goalies like Braden Holtby, Craig Anderson, or Carey Price? He may be slightly hurt and could miss the start of the series, but time will tell whether the pool regrets not taking him more - or for that matter, no one taking a flyer on Roberto.