After Roberto Luongo once again looked like Roberto "No Mas" Duran in Game Six, the finals head back to Vancouver and one thing's for certain: Gary Bettman - who will get booed, because he always gets booed - will hand the Cup to either Henrik Sedin or Zdeno Chara on Wednesday night in Rogers Arena. That much is known. The fun part is guessing who gets the first hand-off.
A lot of times the First Handoff goes to a veteran winning his first Cup (think Dallas Drake in '08 or Glen Wesley in '06). The Canucks' oldest player is Sami Salo at 36. He's never won a Cup. The Bruins old man is 43-year-old Mark Recchi, who has won the Cup twice, most recently in 1917 with the Seattle Metropolitans. Next oldest is Tim Thomas at 37. He's never hoisted Lord Stanley.
For my money, I think Henrik will hand off first to Manny Malhotra - a sentimental pick because of his comeback from the eye injury. Manny's also been in the league since 1998 and has never won. Some folks Henrik think will go to Daniel first, but that's a little weird, even for them, right?
Chara will probably go to Timmy as it makes sense for lots of reasons.
Also interesting is guessing after the first hand-off who gets the Cup in which order. There's often some symbolism there, too. For example, when the Wings won in 2008, Daniel Cleary got his chance relatively early since he was the first Newfoundlander to win.
So what say you, OtFers, who are the First Handoff candidates?


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