As much as it kills me to say it, congratulations to the Blackhawks for winning the Stanley Cup. They were the better team, especially in Game 5 and most of Game 6. I would have loved to have seen a deciding Game 7 where the pressure would have really been on the Hawks at home.
Congratulations also to the Flyers for giving us Philly fans a great run and a wild ride this season. If you would have told me in April that the Flyers would be playing in the Stanley Cup Final, I would have asked you what you were smoking. They had to win a shootout, yes a SHOOTOUT, just to get in the playoffs in the last game of the regular season against the Rangers. When they were down 3 games to none against Boston, pretty much everyone, including yours truly, thought they were done. And then they were down 3 goals to none in the first period of game 7 against the Bruins and managed to pull that game out at as well. Just incredible drama provided by the Flyers in their playoff run.
I think both teams have a good chance of making it back to the Stanley Cup Final next year as well. The Blackhawks are loaded with young talent although I'm not convinced that Niemi is the long term answer at goalie. He looked a little shaky in quite a few of the games against the Flyers. The Flyers have quite a bit of young talent as well, but they also have to decide what they want to do in goal and hope that Pronger can play at a high level again next year. Pronger looked tired the last two games against the Hawks, but they never would have gotten as far as they did without Chris Pronger.