Sharks vs. Penguins: Complete Guide to the 2016 Stanley Cup Final

Since Dec. 12, the Pittsburgh Penguins' record, including these playoffs, is 45-22-5. Since Jan. 9, the San Jose Sharks' record, including these playoffs, is 40-18-4.

This is going to be an entertaining Stanley Cup Final, and here is the official schedule (all times Eastern). One note: The NHL has yet to decide whether NBC or NBCSN will televise Games 3 and 4. One of them will, but at press time it was still undecided as to which (all times ET):

Game 1 - Monday, 8 p.m., San Jose at Pittsburgh (NBC, CBC, TVAS)
Game 2 - Wednesday, 8 p.m., San Jose at Pittsburgh (NBCSN, CBC, TVAS)
Game 3 - Saturday, 8 p.m., Pittsburgh at San Jose (CBC, TVAS)
Game 4 - Monday, June 6, 8 p.m., Pittsburgh at San Jose (CBC, TVAS)
Game 5* - Thursday, June 9, 8 p.m., San Jose at Pittsburgh (NBC, CBC, TVAS)
Game 6* - Sunday, June 12, 8 p.m., Pittsburgh at San Jose (NBC, CBC, TVAS)
Game 7* - Wednesday, June 15, 8 p.m., San Jose at Pittsburgh (NBC, CBC, TVAS)

*If necessary

Both teams have been great for a while, yet both were staring at playoff elimination not too long ago. Both teams had to win tough games on the road, and that makes predicting a winner for this series even tougher. The teams are not only talented, but they have proved themselves gritty in the toughest moments.

Picking differences between these teams is like trying to distinguish between those two guys who played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network.

Both have young, promising goaltenders. Both have legitimate future Hall of Fame top forwards in Sidney Crosby and Joe Thornton, both of whom have won gold medals for Team Canada. Both have deep, diverse forward groups. Both have marvelous, workhorse two-way No. 1 defensemen in Kris Letang and Brent Burns.

Let's go deeper and try to figure out what might be some of the winning differences in the series, ask some other burning questions and make a couple of declarative statements, such as:

Joe Thornton is not just some sentimental, feel-good story

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Thornton seems to have officially entered that club called "Old guys we all want to see finally win one at the end of a long career." But this is not some washed-up guy just trying to hang on for one more good kick at the can. One can make a decent argument, in fact, the 36-year-old is the most effective forward in the league.

Thornton was tied for fourth in the NHL in regular-season scoring with 82 points in 82 games. His plus-25 was second only to the Washington Capitals' Evgeny Kuznetsov for highest among scorers in the top 10. His Corsi-for percentage was 56.3.

Thornton told Vancouver Sun reporter Iain MacIntyre that he wants to play into his 40s. St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, whose team was eliminated in six games by Thornton's Sharks last week, also told MacIntyre, "To me, he's a more dangerous player now than he's ever been in his career."

Thornton is a vastly underrated defensive player, too. He was a big reason why Blues top scorer Vladimir Tarasenko had a quiet Western Conference Final. He backchecks as hard as anyone and seems even quicker on his skates now than he was a few years ago.

Thornton is not an object of sentiment to otherwise be dismissed. He's a beast.

Matt Murray shouldn't get too comfortable

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Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan has used three goalies so far in the playoffs. Jeff Zatkoff started the postseason after Marc-Andre Fleury went down with a concussion, and Fleury replaced Matt Murray as the No. 1 guy in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Murray did the job in Games 6 and 7 after Fleury faltered, but he had to face only 17 Lightning shots in Game 7. The Sharks are the highest-scoring team so far in the playoffs (63 goals in 18 games, 3.50 per game), and they made Hitchcock play the goalie roulette wheel in the last round.

Murray is the guy for now, but no doubt there will be many armchair pundits who will call again for Fleury if Murray has even one bad game.

Fleury, who played in successive Cup Finals in 2008 and 2009, winning it all in the second year, is a $5.75 million backup. He did look rusty in his one playoff start, however, so it will probably take two mediocre-to-bad games by Murray this time if Fleury is to get back in. But maybe not. Sullivan has shown he isn't afraid of giving a quick hook.

As ever, though, the official theme song for NHL coaches when it comes to goaltending is this great Janet Jackson tune.

Potential X-factor

Marc-Edouard Vlasic has already been named as one of the four defensemen for Canada for this fall's World Cup, which should tell you something about how he is regarded in hockey circles.

Yet the player known around the Sharks dressing room as Pickles doesn't get a lot of publicity. He's just one of those rock-steady defensemen who does his job quietly but effectively. The Penguins have a premier two-way defenseman in Letang, as do the Sharks in Burns.

Vlasic is a tier above any other Penguins defenseman beyond Letang. That gives the Sharks an edge on defense. He averaged 23:08 of ice time in the regular season, ranking 31st among all defensemen. He's averaged 23:35 in the playoffs with 11 points in 18 games. He's been a Sharks regular since 2006-07.

If Burns is having an off night, Vlasic often is there to make up for it. If Letang has an off night, it's tough to say the same for the Penguins, especially now that Trevor Daley is out for the series with a broken ankle.

Who has the edge at forward?

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Tough, tough call here. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin remain a dynamic duo, as do Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski. While Malkin is a more gifted talent than Pavelski, Joey Pavs leads the NHL in postseason goals (13), with four game-winners.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, those two guys cancel each other out. Who has the edge after that?

Tough, tough call. 

For every Phil Kessel, the Sharks can call with Logan Couture. For every Patrick Marleau, the Penguins can raise with Nick Bonino. For every key role player in Matt Cullen, the Sharks can match in Joel Ward.

This is a flip of the coin. Both teams have three really good lines, and the fourth lines are pretty good, too.

There are other forwards who haven't even been named yet, including Carl Hagelin, Bryan Rust, Chris Kunitz and Conor Sheary for the Penguins and Tomas Hertl, Joonas Donskoi and Chris Tierney for the Sharks. Hmm, that was four guys listed just there for the Penguins and three for the Sharks.

So maybe Pittsburgh has a slight edge overall up front. And let's face it: On paper, the Penguins' third line, with Kessel and Hagelin centered by Bonino, is better than San Jose's third line of Tierney centering Ward and Melker Karlsson.

The Penguins are averaging a robust 35.1 shots on goal per game in the postseason. 

Who is Peter DeBoer, anyway?

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

He is one of only several coaches in the last 31 years to take two different teams to a Stanley Cup Final as head coach, with Alain Vigneault (New York Rangers and Vancouver) and Darry Sutter (Los Angeles and Calgary) both meeting in the 2014 Final.

The San Jose coach took the New Jersey Devils to the Cup Final in 2012 against Los Angeles but was fired on Dec. 26, 2014 (nice of former Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello for waiting one day after Christmas) after a 12-17-7 start with New Jersey.

DeBoer is considered a defensive coach at heart, but he did not turn the Sharks into a boring checking team, as evidenced by San Jose's gaudy postseason scoring numbers. He doesn't mind giving his offensive players the freedom to jet to the other end, but he wants them to participate in a sound defensive structure before they get the puck. That usually means a 1-2-2 checking formation, whereby the two forwards in the middle have to do a good job of swarming the puck in the neutral zone.

Other questions

Will long travel and/or fatigue be a factor?

According to the website Distance Between Cities, Pittsburgh and San Jose are 2,244 miles apart. Even on a chartered, direct flight, that's still a good five-hour flight or so (there are no commercially available direct flights between San Jose and Pittsburgh, by the way). 

So, it's fair to wonder if the distance might create a fatigue factor for either team. But here's why it won't: The league has scheduled three days between Games 2 and 3, and between Games 5, 6 and 7. The league usually slated only two days off between games in previous Stanley Cup Finals, even in later games. Not this year, and that extra day will give players plenty of time to rest up.

The Penguins might have been at a disadvantage under the league's old scheduling ways, as they aren't used to the kind of long-distance travel that San Jose usually faces.

Could Paul Martin's knowledge of the Penguins' tendencies be another X-factor?

According to the Mercury News' Paul Gackle, Sharks defenseman Paul Martin has provided DeBoer with "intimate knowledge" of the Penguins' offensive tendencies the last few days. Martin, the 35-year-old veteran, spent the previous five seasons in Pittsburgh before signing a free-agent deal last summer with San Jose.

With as much video as coaches watch today, and with as much advanced scouting and analytics at their disposal, it's hard to believe there isn't much they don't already know about their opponent ahead of time.

But, hey, maybe Martin does have some juicy inside information that could prove useful to DeBoer. It certainly can't hurt.

Will home ice matter in this series?

No. The Sharks have been excellent all season away from SAP Center, and the Penguins have won some tough games already on the road, especially that Game 6 win in Tampa on Tuesday night.

Neither team lapses often into Washington Generals territory. They've been playing almost every contest lately, no matter the venue, as if it's a seventh game. In the regular season, the teams split two games, with the road team winning each one.

Stanley Cup Final series prediction

Outlook

I keep flipping a coin and doing rock-paper-scissors to pick a winner of this thing. I'd like to say the Penguins, because of home-ice advantage, but I can't see this Sharks team losing two games in a row anywhere.

Both teams have played great hockey for several months. It's hard to see how either team can lose. But one will, and I have to say that team will be Pittsburgh.

The Sharks have had the tougher competition to this point. The Penguins had a cupcake first-round opponent in the Rangers, then barely got past a Tampa Bay team in the Eastern Conference Final without Ben Bishop for most of it.

This is the Sharks' 25th anniversary, which is known as the "silver" anniversary. The Stanley Cup is made mostly of silver.

So, this is the Sharks' year.

Prediction: Sharks in seven games.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report.