The talking is all but over and we are now here. It is the last game of the 2010/11 NHL season and we are now only a few hours away from discovering our champion. 

This is the third Stanley Cup Finals to got to a Game 7 in six seasons since the lockout. The other two were in 2006 where Carolina defeated Edmonton and in 2009 when Pittsburgh beat Detroit. In few series has home ice been so important with no victory on the road so far, but how much of a factor will it be in Game 7?

The two main pieces of line-up news are both with Vancouver. Roberto Luongo was confirmed as the Game 7 starter almost immediately after Game 6 despite being pulled from that contest for a second time in the series. Jeff Tambellini is set to take the injured Mason Raymond’s place in the line-up. It seems likely that Tambellini could start on the second line, partly because he is probably the best fit and partly to avoid upsetting chemistry. However, Vigneault will undoubtedly be flexible and could be tempted to promote Manny Malhotra to the third line and one of Jannik Hansen/Raffi Torres to the Kesler line.

Expected Line-ups

Boston

Milan Lucic – David Krejci – Rich Peverley

Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – Mark Recchi

Tyler Seguin – Chris Kelly – Michael Ryder

Daniel Paille – Gregory Campbell – Shawn Thornton

Zdeno Chara – Dennis Seidenberg

Andrew Ference – Johnny Boychuk

Tomas Kaberle – Adam McQuaid

Tim Thomas

Vancouver

Daniel Sedin – Henrik Sedin – Alexandre Burrows

Chris Higgins – Ryan Kesler – Jeff Tambellini

Raffi Torres – Maxim Lapierre – Jannik Hansen

Tanner Glass – Manny Malhotra – Viktor Oreskovich

Alexander Edler – Kevin Bieksa

Sami Salo – Christian Ehrhoff

Andrew Alberts – Christopher Tanev

Roberto Luongo

Five Key Factors

1. Special Teams

Vancouver’s power-play showed signs of life late in Game 6, while Boston’s has yet to step up in Vancouver. You would expect the referees to be reluctant to blow the whistle tonight, but neither team will want to risk their penalty kill even though neither would describe their power-play as a strength so far in the series. Numbers won’t matter if either team gets a big goal on the man advantage in this one.

2. Roberto Luongo

Is it going to be Game 5 Luongo or Game 6? He showed a lot of resilience in Game 5 and clearly prefers playing in Vancouver, but being pulled for a second time won’t be easy to cope with. He doesn’t need to outplay Tim Thomas, but he does need to play close to his best if he wants to give his team a chance tonight.

3. Line matching

Claude Julien inparticular loves to match his lines, but he neither team must allow themselves to become obsessed by it at this stage. Focusing too much on getting the right lines matched up, particularly on the road can have a negative effect. Both coaches will have to put their trust in their players at this point and get the match-ups when they can, but they mustn’t force the issue too much.

4. Phyiscality

Both teams aim to be physical, and both know that there is a fine line between the right amount and the wrong amount of physicality. Boston cannot afford to be run over by the Canucks, they must hit back as they did more effectively in Game 5 compared with Games 1 and 2. However, they cannot afford to take too many penalties and give Vancouver’s power-play good opportunities. Meanwhile, the Canucks need to get physical involved and play their physical game, but they should avoid the after the whistle scrums. It is not their game and they are losing the officials respect with dramatic dives in those scrums.

5. The First Goal

Scoring first has been as reliable as home ice advantage so far in this series. Whichever team scores first will relax a lot quicker and steal momentum. Neither of these two teams wants to chase a game of hockey tonight.