The Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks are two very intelligent teams.

Both teams have a lot of guys that are shoot-first guys. I think you can say Patrick Sharp is a shooter, Brent Seabrook is very much a shooter, Zdeno Chara is a shooter. Go up and down the lineup and there are shooters both up front and on the back end for both sides; there are a lot of skilled guys who can score.

Boston has the most goals by defensemen and the most points by a defense corps in the playoffs. That being said, what I liked about both teams in Game 1 is they were shooting to create goals. They weren’t just shooting to score goals.

There are two ways to score goals. You can shoot to score, or you can shoot in a way to try and set up a scoring chance for someone else. I saw guys shooting for the far pad a lot. Sometimes they would take a little heat off the shot hoping that the goalie couldn’t control the puck if it hit his low blocker and spit back out.

CHICAGO -- Corey Crawford and Tuukka Rask were both fantastic in Game 1 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Final.

You have to look at not only the number of shots they faced, but a lot of those were quality shots. I think Rask had something like 38 scoring chances against. The number of quality chances both guys faced was crazy, and we’re talking Grade-A, point-blank shots.

Look at how talented both the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins are. A lot of these opportunities are prime scoring chances coming from top guys. I thought both goalies were just outstanding.

First of all, I just love that the 2013 Stanley Cup Final is going to be an "Original Six" series. It is the first time since 1979, so these things are very rare.

If you look at these two franchises and all that they've been able to accomplish, the fact that this is the first time they've met in the Final is crazy. You think of the history of both franchises, and the iconic players who have played in both places -- Bobby Orr is the first one that comes to mind.

It is an unbelievable experience, not only for the players, the coaches and everybody associated with the teams, but the fans and all of us who are fortunate enough to work in and around the game. I think it is going to make for a special Stanley Cup Final.

Looking at Boston, I love the way the Bruins are playing. After they were able to get out of the noose against the Maple Leafs, they've been outstanding. Tuukka Rask has been outstanding the whole time, by the way.

What is so interesting about this Western Conference Semifinal series between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings are the similarities between the two organizations.

Chicago has been able to turn its franchise around by emulating Detroit. By that I mean puck possession, good two-way play, making plays offensively, being good offensively, not necessarily running guys through the boards but playing more of a puck possession and skill-type game.

The Hawks rebuilt their team through the draft and with some good trades and those great kids, of course, but it was all with an eye toward playing the Detroit Red Wings' style. Obviously with Scotty Bowman coming aboard as a senior advisor and having his son Stan run the show there as GM, certainly there is a lot of Detroit DNA in the Chicago Blackhawks, and it has shown in how they rebuilt the team and won the Stanley Cup in 2010 and how great they were in the regular season.

The Marian Gaborik trade has really helped the New York Rangers. Gaborik is a premier player and a huge goal scorer, but right now based on the way the Rangers play -- and I'm going to get into that more in a little bit -- the trade has really helped them.

They were short on depth. They have some star players, but the Rangers had lost a lot of their depth up front. Those guys [they got for Gaborik] have come in and played exceptionally well, particularly Derick Brassard. He has been really good for the Rangers, and has helped slot guys in and given them some of the depth they lost when they made the Rick Nash trade.

They did that trade at the expense of their depth, and then Brandon Prust didn't re-sign, Ruslan Fedotenko, who was a good player for them, left, they traded Mike Rupp -- they had some depth on the third and fourth lines last year that they didn't have this year.