DETROIT -- These Stanley Cup finals appear to be all about skill with the puck. Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby is a once-in-a-generation talent who makes the ice melt just by staring at it, then walks on water. Crosby's teammate, Evgeni Malkin, is the Messier to Crosby's Gretzky -- in the story line, if not in skill set.

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And as Red Wings fans know, Pavel Datsyuk can deke a goalie while magically cutting himself into three pieces. Henrik Zetterberg then puts Datsyuk back together and scores himself.

That's all wonderful. It should make these finals more exciting than the ones the Red Wings played in 1995, 1997, 1998 and 2002. (None of those lasted past Game 5.) But if the Red Wings win, it won't just be about their skill with the puck. A bigger factor might be their skill at getting the puck. The Red Wings were first in the NHL at winning faceoffs this season. The Penguins? Dead last.

The difference between first and last is not as big as in other statistical categories -- the Red Wings won 53.3 percent of their faceoffs, and the Penguins won 46.1 percent. But it is significant, for the obvious reasons that a) the faceoff winner gets the puck, and b) a man who tries to shoot the puck when he doesn't have it tends to look like an idiot.

The Red Wings' excellence on faceoffs helps to explain why they averaged 10.9 more shots on goal than their opponents. The Penguins' struggles, meanwhile, help explain why Pittsburgh was outshot by 3.1 shots.

The gap has been even bigger in the playoffs. The Red Wings have won 55.7 percent of their faceoffs while Pittsburgh has won just 46.7 percent.

"I don't know if people really understand how important it is to us," Red Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall said. "That's a big key to our game. The whole team, we like to have the puck as much as possible, and that all starts with our faceoffs."

Of course, the Penguins made the finals anyway. And they managed to beat the New York Rangers, who were second in the league in faceoffs.

What makes the Red Wings so good? Kris Draper, for one. He has won an astounding 63.4 percent of his faceoffs during the playoffs, the best in the league. That's no fluke -- Draper was the third-best face-off man in the league this season.

"People think, 'It's just the puck dropped and one team has to win it, whatever,' " Draper's longtime linemate, Kirk Maltby, said. "It's a skill. If you look at the real good faceoff guys through the course of 10 years, it's a lot of the same guys."

Some faceoffs happen so quickly that fans usually can't tell why a player wins one. Quick hands are obviously a big factor, but Maltby pointed to Draper's strength as a key asset. That is most important when the Red Wings have faceoffs in their end.

"If you can win the faceoff and get one good pass, you're out of your zone instead of spending 35 or 40 seconds in your own end," Kronwall said.