In the first half of my Eastern Conference Finals preview, I looked at the goaltenders and defensemen on the Flyers and Penguins. In the second part, I'll discuss the forwards.

Tomorrow, in my Game One pregame blog, I'll discuss issues such as special teams, discipline and the keys to victory for each team.


FLYERS FORWARDS

For all the talk about the Penguins’ group of forwards, the Flyers have the depth to match up with the Pens. Paul Holmgren amassed a collection of skill and grit, and the Flyers have underrated speed up front to go along with the physical play everyone talks about.

The top Flyers line of Daniel Briere, Vaclav Prospal and Scott Hartnell was outstanding at five-on-five in the Capitals series. In the Montreal series, Briere continued his strong play, both at even strength and on the powerplay.

When he has the puck on his stick also scores a lot of goals by wheeling out from the half-boards into the slot. When he doesn’t have the puck, he is a master at hiding out behind the traffic (especially on the powerplay) and then materializing on the side of the net or to collect the puck and score.

Limiting Briere’s skating and passing room will be a focal point for the Pens. Oddly enough, he tends to lose the puck more often when he’s not pressured than when he is. But no coach in his right mind would tell his players, “Just back off Briere and make sure no one else is cutting to the slot.”

Briere took a lot of heat (deservedly so) for his defensive play during the regular season, but he worked much harder on his side of the red line during the final two weeks of the regular season and so far in the playoffs. That needs to continue.

Briere is no choirboy on the ice, even if he physically resembles one. He'll use his stick as an equalizer for his lack of size and has been accused of diving at times in his career. But until he joined the Flyers and I was able to watch him play on an every-game basis, I did not realize how competitive he is. He'll battle and grind when he has to, and is surprisingly sturdy for such a small guy.

Despite being a 30-goal scorer this year with Tampa and the Flyers, Prospal is more of a natural playmaker than scorer (although he obviously can finish, too). The big thing with Prospal is whether he keeps his feet moving.

The Penguins do not have a defensive pairing equal to Montreal’s top pairing of Mike Komisarek and Andrei Markov. Prospal may be able to find a little more operating room for himself against the Pens, but he can’t be a stationary player. was tough to take off the puck in the early part of the Caps series, but played a little soft at times in the Habs series.

Most of Hartnell’s goals are of the ugly variety – deflections, goal mouth scrambles and rebounds. He’s at his best when he’s hitting, yapping and getting in the goalie’s grill. Hartnell needs playmakers to get him the puck in close. When Prospal finally got going offensively in the latter half of Game Four against the Habs, Hartnell once again became an offensive factor. He scored huge goals in each of the final two games.

During the regular season series with Pittsburgh, John Stevens typically preferred to have Jeff Carter’s line play against Malkin’s line – going for the size-on-size matchup. That will probably continue in the playoffs, so Mike Richards’ line will probably see a lot of Crosby’s line. Michel Therrien may try to get his scoring lines out against the Briere and Jim Dowd lines, or else play it straight up and have Briere see a lot of Staal’s unit.

Team MVP Richards was a model of consistency all year for the Flyers and will need to have an outstanding series for the Flyers to defeat the Penguins. He’s become Mr. Everything for the club – a tone-setter with and without the puck. Richards drives the Flyers’ engine in many different ways.

You name it, Richards does it: wins battles on the boards, effectively plays a point on the powerplay, finds the open man with passes, scores clutch goals, takes the body, darts into passing lanes to create shorthanded scoring, and more. Richards will be flanked by R.J. Umberger and Joffrey Lupul.

Umberger has moved all around the lineup and can play any forward position as needed. After tearing apart the Habs for eight goals in five games – and scoring six of his 13 regular season goals against the Penguins – you can bet the Pittsburgh native has Michel Therrien’s attention.

But even when he’s not scoring, Umberger usually delivers on the forecheck and the penalty kill. He now seems back at full strength after being hampered by a sprained knee (suffered against the Pens). Umberger is at his best when he uses his considerable strength to shield the puck and has underrated acceleration.

Joffrey Lupul scored the series-winning overtime goal in the seventh game against Washington and sporadically looked effective against Montreal. But there’s room for him to elevate his game. Lupul can be very effective when he uses both his size and speed. The more involved Lupul is physically, the more effectively he plays. When he plays the perimeter and tries be a finesse player, he’s a non-factor.

Lupul has not consistently been the same player since suffering a high ankle sprain shortly after returning from a spinal injury. But he was one of the Flyers’ most dangerous players in the first half of the season and played particularly well against the Pens (five goals and 10 points in seven games, including a hat trick). Lupul has the heaviest, most explosive shot among all Flyers forwards.

Jeff Carter improved across the board this season, and was especially good when Richards went down with a torn hamstring. Defensively, he’s 100% better than he was a rookie two seasons ago, and often thrived in difficult matchups this season. He will have his work cut out for him in this series.

Offensively, Carter’s size and strength makes him hard to take off the puck, but he’s also a smooth skater moving both north-south and east-west. Many of his scoring chances are self-created. Much is made of his explosive wrist shot, but he's very streaky with it.

Carter goes through long stretches where he can’t buy a goal. During those times, he’s either tattooing the end boards or glass behind the net or he’s burying the puck in the goalie’s equipment. But he also can score goals in bunches along the same lines as Malkin. The main difference is that Carter’s droughts last longer. Another difference is that Carter sometimes gets tunnel vision offensively and does not always make optimal use of his linemates.

Carter’s linemates are Scottie Upshall and Mike Knuble. Upshall was one of the Flyers’ best players in the Montreal series. He has explosive speed and throws a lot of bodychecks that create turnovers. The challenge for Upshall is to play within himself and avoid bad penalties and defensive mistakes.

Ever since being scratched by John Stevens in the next-to-last regular season game against the Pens, Upshall has almost flawlessly walked the tightrope between aggressiveness and recklessness. He still does his share of yapping, but saves most it for the opposition rather than the referees. Upshall has also cut back on some of his diving and slashes behind the play, and has been a better player for it.

The return of Knuble to the lineup after missing the end of the Washington series and the start of the Montreal series was an underrated key in the Flyers second-round victory. He is a key player in front of the net on the powerplay and along the boards.

Knuble also blocks a lot of shots and kills penalties. After checking liners Sami Kapanen and Patrick Thoresen, he is one of the few Flyers’ forwards who helps relieve pressure by chipping the puck over the blueline from the side boards of the defensive zone.

Knuble has some limitations to his game. He’s not a great puckhandler or passer. And he’s prone to offensive zone penalties for interference or hooking. But the veteran’s assets outweigh the drawbacks.

The Flyers’ have a couple of different options for the fourth line. They can continue to go with the unit of Jim Dowd centering Sami Kapanen and Patrick Thoresen, or they can slot in enforcer Riley Cote and/or rookie agitator Steve Downie. I expect the lineup to remain the same at the start of the series.

The Dowd line was effective against Montreal. The line often kept Montreal hemmed in their own end of the ice, and even chipped in a couple goals early in the series. Dowd is a good faceoff man and penalty killer. Thoresen does everything well, except score. His two-way play and awareness enable him to get his fair share of scoring chances considering his ice time – he just can’t finish at all. Kapanen was once a good NHL offensive player but is now strictly a checker. He still skates very well.


PENGUINS FORWARDS

The Penguins’ forward corps combines some of the attributes of the Flyers first- and second-round opponents, only to greater degrees.

The Capitals boast a young superstar in Alexander Ovechkin. The Penguins have a pair of superstars in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, not to mention one of the game’s best pure snipers in Marian Hossa. The Canadiens have a fearsome powerplay, a lot of depth up front and the ability to control the puck for long periods of time. So do the Penguins.

One of the things that makes Pittsburgh so potent offensively is that Crosby and especially Malkin can beat you with sheer power as well as finesse, and with the players on separate lines, the Penguins can build tremendous momentum from shift to shift.

Even if Crosby’s skating has not been quite 100% since returning from a high ankle sprain, he can create room for himself or his linemates in a flash. He has extraordinary ice vision, the ability to thread passes through sticks and skates, and a shot that is both powerful and precise.

Crosby draws a lot of penalties on the opposition – sometimes legitimately, sometimes by flopping to the ice as soon as he’s touched. When he’s hell-bent on keeping on his feet, opponents pretty much have to tackle him to prevent a scoring chance. Even then, he can still sometimes create a dangerous play from the ice.

It took Crosby and Hossa a little while to develop chemistry, but they are a deadly duo. Hossa has one of the NHL’s quickest shot releases and he finds the seams in the defense as well as anyone in the game. In the Rangers series, Hossa took a big step toward erasing a reputation as a player who disappears in the playoffs.

Malkin, meanwhile, may be even more dangerous than Crosby when he has the puck. He just may be the single toughest player in the NHL to take off the puck. He’s both elusive and powerful, and he’s got what coaches call a “hard stick” (meaning you can’t separate him from the puck by trying to lift his stick or poke-checking it off the blade).

The only way to defend him is take away any semblance of operating room and rely on your other defenders and goaltender to win one-on-one battles with Malkin’s linemates. Malkin has also developed a bit of a mean streak to his game. He doesn’t hit as often as Ovechkin, but he’s not intimidated at all by physical play. He can also push the envelope sometimes.

Crosby catches most of the heat from opposing fans because of his facial expressions and willingness to yap at opposing players and refs. But Malkin is more likely than Crosby to deliver a two-hander or kick out an opponent’s skates.

To supplement their big three Pens also have some well-matched complementary players (Ryan Malone, Petr Sykora, Pascal Dupuis) to round out the top two lines. Malone is good in front of the net and on the boards. The veteran Sykora is similar to some of the finesse-oriented European players the Flyers faced in the Washington and Montreal series. Dupuis has brought a two-way presence and added speed to the Crosby line.

Young Jordan Staal fell victim to a sophomore slump offensively, but contributed in other ways. He’s become more of a well-rounded player than he was as a rookie, and his size and reach make him tough to play against. Apart from Staal, the Pens feature plenty of muscle (Malone, the ageless Gary Roberts, enforcer Georges Laraque, Jarkko Ruutu) to win battles on the boards.

The broken foot suffered by Maxime Talbot removes one of the Penguins most important role players from the lineup – he kills penalties, forechecks, agitates and can hustle up a few goals. He’s unlikely to be able to play early in the series, and his availability later in the series remains to be seen.

Roberts returned to the lineup in the absence of Talbot. The competitive fires still burn intensely for the 42-year-old power forward, even with all the mileage and injuries he has accumulated over the years.

Roberts can no longer handle major minutes and won’t win any footraces for loose pucks, but you still have to watch out for him in a limited role. He is still strong on the puck, and still able to pop a few powerplay goals. As for his legendary mean streak, he hasn’t mellowed at all with age. If anything, he’s gotten more ornery. If he’s on your side, he’s a “no quarters asked or given” throwback to old-school hockey. If he’s on the opposition, he’s dirty as hell.

Laraque is unlikely to fight in this series, unless the Flyers dress Riley Cote (I don’t think they will) or a line brawl erupts (it may). He had two non-fighting run-ins with the Flyers this year, sliding into Martin Biron and getting tossed from a game for boarding Steve Downie. But generally, Laraque is not known as a dirty player. He is capable of skating five-on-five shifts without taking penalties.

While many call Laraque the top heavyweight in the NHL, some say he fights on his own agenda rather than operating as a traditional policeman who looks out for his teammates. Donald Brashear receives many of the same criticisms. In the first round of the playoffs this year, Brashear was the Capitals most effective forechecker against the Flyers and stayed out of the penalty box. Laraque, who has just two penalty minutes in the postseason, will try to perform a similar role.

Ruutu is one of the most hated players in the NHL among opposing teams. He has a league-wide reputation for being sneaky dirty (which makes him a target of the referees as well the opposing players) but is also an effective checker who draws a lot of penalties on the opposition.

Even his most vehement critics would not question Ruutu’s work ethic. He doesn’t quit on plays, takes the body and gives a second and third effort. On the flip side, he’ll often ignore the whistle to get that one extra jab in. You could say some of the same things about the Flyers’ Scott Hartnell, but Hartnell is the more effective offensive player of the two.

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