Most of the so called hockey illuminati in the media have touted Sidney Crosby as the NHL's best player (if not messiah) since before he was even drafted.  These pundits have also spoken ad nauseum about how stacked the Penguins are at the center position with Crosby, followed by this year's Art Ross Trophy winner Evgeni Malkin and two-way horse Jordan Staal taking draws for their top three lines.  Certainly every GM in the league would salivate over that line-up down the middle.  But what of their wingers?  How have they been producing in the playoffs?  The fact is they haven't produced very much, but they haven't had to.  Crosby(12) and Malkin(6) have accounted for 18 goals so far in the playoffs this year.  That's 40% of the Penguins goal production coming from your top two centers.  Only four wingers have scored goals for the Pens in this year's playoffs, totalling 11 goals.  Four of Pittsburgh's D-men have chipped in a total of 10 goals.

Is this a potential achilles heel for the Pens?  If Corvo, Gleason, Pitkanen and Seidenberg can contain Crosby and Malkin, and keep their combined goal production to a goal per game average, who can step up for the Pens?  Do they have a Jussi Jokinen?  Bill Guerin is their no. 3 goal scorer, but could he pick up the slack at this point in his career?  Ruslan Fedotenko had a great playoff for Tampa Bay in '04.  Could he answer the call again?

Carolina is the best team defensively that Pittsburgh has faced so far in the playoffs.  However, Pittsburgh doesn't have the depth of offensive skill that Boston did.  I have a feeling that this may be the series that shows the rest of the hockey world how good Carolina is.  I had a feeling in the last series that Carolina could win because Tim Thomas, despite having a great regular season, is a rebound factory.  Goalies that give up that many rebounds don't survive in the playoffs because teams skate a lot harder and get to the net more and faster.  I believed that if Carolina played tight defensively, skated hard and battled near the net, Thomas would provide them with enough fruit to live on.  Ultimately, rebounds from Thomas cost Boston the series as both Carolina OT wins resulted from pucks being deposited near the goal and near Carolina sticks by the Bruins' netminder.

In this series against the Pens, I have a feeling that Pittsburgh may be too top heavy to overcome Carolina's defensive style.  I'm also not convinced that M.A. Fleury is mature enough to carry the team when he is needed to.  I don't think he's shown that in the playoffs this year.  He showed flashes of it last year, but not the cool, consistent big time save ability that Cam Ward has come to embody.

If the Canes play the same way they did in the Boston series, they will win the series and may not require seven games to do it.  However, in order for Pittsburgh to win, they will need more production from players other than their two all-world centermen.