I KNOW Some of Y'all Get Tired of This...

... but it's MY blog and hockey is my LIFE from now until mid-June when The Cup is hoisted and skated around the ice, hopefully in Dee-troit. But a road win clinching The Cup (see: last year in that city somewhere in Pennsylvania) would be almost as good.

That said... there's this, from The Hockey News:

This week the THN Top 10 counts down the NHL’s 10 best lines.

Now before everyone gets all in a tizzy over the combinations listed below, let it be known we worked off the depth charts sent to us last week by our 30 NHL correspondents – all of whom cover their respective teams for major dailies in those cities. So although you might think you’ve got the finger on the pulse of your favorite club, these are the guys who watch every game, go to every practice and have access to players and coaches almost daily.

We’ve also gone with just one line per team, because we didn’t think it fair for Detroit and Philadelphia to take up 40 percent of the list. Finally, this list is both subjective and objective, the former because we took into account intangibles such as leadership and all-around play, the latter because we also looked at pure numbers. But needless to say, any team in the league would take any of these 10 lines on their team.

Lines are listed as left wing–center–right wing.

1. Johan Franzen – Pavel Datsyuk – Tomas Holmstrom, Detroit Red Wings
The choice in Hockeytown was even tougher than the one in Philly. But Datsyuk is the premier defensive forward in the league and has a 24-point lead in the Red Wing scoring race. Plus the line owns a cumulative plus-63 rating and has scored 29 power play goals and 11 game winners. As for its No. 1 position on the list, when you’re the best line on the deepest team in hockey, which also happens to be the defending Stanley Cup-champion, you deserve it.

I couldn't have said it better myownself. Read the whole thing and see if you agree. Jimmy T's prediction of a Dee-troit - Philly Final might come to pass. That wouldn't be a BAD thing in my book... no sir, not at ALL.

(h/t: The BEST hockey blog in all of Christendom... Kukla's Korner)