As god is my witness, I thought penguins could fly.

To toot my own horn, I predicted this a year ago. Sort of. I predicted that Pittsburgh would be the Cup runner-up, and the nineteenth different team in a row to do that. However, I was a little off the mark with my prediction of Calgary as the winner.

Apologies to station manager Arthur Carlson and the entire staff of WKRP for stealing their joke. Unfortunately, the punchline isn't delivered in this clip, but here's the setup:



The Red Wings captured the Stanley Cup on Wednesday night, winning the series four games to two. After game one, I thought it might not be such a good fight. After game two, I changed my pick to "Wings in three". After game three, which the Pens won, I was cautiously optimistic.
The Wings took the lead with about seven minutes to go, in game four, and it seemed like they would salt it away. However, their celebration was postponed when Maxime Talbot scored with about 36 seconds left to tie it and force overtime. It was postponed even more when Petr Sykora won the game for the Pens halfway through the third overtime period.

Henrik Zetterberg got the game-winning goal on a bit of a lapse by Emma Fleury, who made the stop but knocked it into his own net with his butt. By then, the Conn Smythe voting had already taken place, but getting the Cup-clinching goal certainly justifies what might have otherwise been a controversial award.

With the Wings win, one long NHL tradition ended. Nick Lidstrom became the first European captain to hoist the Cup.

Another completely ridiculous trend continued. Pittsburgh became the 19th different Cup runner up in the last 19 Cups. Although The Minnesota NorthStars (1991) and the Dallas Stars (2000) both lost during this streak which started in 1989, there were different fans, different cities, different arenas. Technically speaking, the Stars are and aren't a continuation of the NorthStars, but that's a different discussion. Check here for details about this streak of different runners-up.

What this means is that there are 12 teams who are not on that list. In order to keep the streak alive, one of the following teams must LOSE in the Stanley Cup finals next season:
Atlanta
Tampa
Toronto
Islanders
Rangers

San Jose
Phoenix
Nashville
Columbus
St. Louis
Colorado
Minnesota Wild


My guess is the Sharks. Fans in San Jose should go ahead and prepare themselves for the heartbreak that will be theirs next June. Who will win? Perhaps Montréal.

Last June 7, I correctly predicted that Pittsburgh would be this year's runner-up. Today, I'm predicting that the Sharks will find themselves added to that ridiculous list. I'll write more about this later.