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Blackhawks vs. Lightning Stanley Cup Preview: Who has the better forwards?

CHICAGO, IL - JUNE 12: Lightning strikes the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in downtown on June 12, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. A massive storm system with heavy rain, high winds, hail and possible tornadoes is expected to move into Illinois and much of the central part of the Midwest today. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Leading up to Wednesday's Game 1, Puck Daddy is previewing every facet of the Stanley Cup Final between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Tampa Bay Lightning — on the ice and off the ice. 

CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS

Chicago’s decision to unite Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane on the first line in the last two full games of the Western Conference Final turned its series against Anaheim.

The Blackhawks won both contests, Kane had one goal and four assists, Toews had two scores and Brandon Saad – the third player in the trio – scored two goals. Chicago’s high-end talent at forward is almost ‘unfair’ good. Antoine Vermette is being used as a lower-line face off ace. Dude was a scorer in all his previous stops as a player. Kane ranks second amongst playoff scorers with 21 points. Toews ranks sixth with 18. And when the going gets tough … Toews gets going as we saw with how he played in Games 5 and 7 at Anaheim: two goals at the end of Game 5 to send that contest to OT, and two at the start of Game 7 to push Chicago to a win.

Chicago also has solid depth players like Game 2 hero Marcus Kruger and pest Andrew Shaw, who can move up and down the lineup.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING 

We’ll try to write a preview involving the Lightning’s forwards without mentioning ‘The Triplets’ line. Ugh, we already screwed up.

The Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Nikita Kucherov trio has proved unstoppable so far through three rounds. Johnson is the NHL’s leading playoff scorer, and has 12 goals to also lead the league. Kucherov has 19 points. Palat has 15 points so far this postseason. They are the NHL’s ‘it’ line this playoff.

The Lightning has a pretty solid player on its ‘second’ line in captain Steven Stamkos who had four goals and three assists in Tampa’s seven-game Eastern Conference Final victory over the New York Rangers. He didn’t score a goal in the Lightning’s first-round win over Detroit. The fact that Tampa won that series with a slumping Stamkos is still slightly mind-boggling, though speaks to the importance of its forwards.

The Lightning’s bottom-six players – for example Brian Boyle and Cedric Paquette – play meaningful minutes on the penalty kill.

WHO HAS THE EDGE?

Chicago

I love ‘The Triplets’ and Stamkos is a dynamic goal scorer, but few teams have balanced star power like Chicago. Check that, no team has that type of balanced star power at forward. Kane/Toews/Saad is like ‘Triplets’ 2.0.

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