It's convenient to say that today's Pittsburgh Penguins may be on the same flight path as the 1984 Edmonton Oilers.

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The Penguins have cornerstone young players, led by Sidney Crosby, right, but the Edmonton Oilers' dynasty team was laced with Hall of Famers to complement Wayne Gretzky, left.

Photograph by : Getty Images

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The Oilers were schooled by the older, more determined New York Islanders in Wayne Gretzky's first trip to the Stanley Cup final in 1983, but learned their lesson by 1984, their will equalling their skill, as Edmonton put a crushing final note to the Islanders' four-year run as Cup champs.

Now we'll see if Sidney Crosby and the Penguins will get the same result when they get their rematch with the Detroit Red Wings, starting on Saturday.

It's the first time in 25 years the same two clubs have met in back-to-back finals. The Red Wings are the closest thing to an NHL dynasty these days, with four Cups since 1997 and five trips to the finals.

But to say their opposition, the 2009 Penguins, are a mirror image of the 1984 Oilers is a bit of a stretch.

Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are a reasonable facsimile of Gretzky and Mark Messier as monster tag-team centres.

But Messier, who played with a sore shoulder in the '83 final, was also mean. Malkin is a teddy bear compared to Messier, who played the game in ill humour.

"Give Crosby and Malkin credit, they've raised their game to another level -- Crosby against Ovechkin in the Washington series and Malkin against Carolina in the last one," said Dave Hunter, who played for the Oilers in 1983 and 1984.

"But we had four or five or six great players ... not just Wayne and Mark." It could be destiny that a team with Crosby and Malkin, two of the three best forwards in the game, should win a Cup early in their careers, but there is not the inevitability that was evident in Edmonton in the early 1980s.

The Oilers also had Grant Fuhr in goal, Paul Coffey on defence, Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson on the wings -- Hall of Famers all.

The Penguins also have two cornerstone kids -- goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and centre Jordan Staal, who both went in the top three in the draft, plus Sergei Gonchar on defence, but are they going to the Hall of Fame? The Oilers had a run of 111, 106 and 119 points and scored 417, 424 and 446 goals in the three regular seasons before winning their first Stanley Cup in 1984.

They were frankly due to break through, and the Islanders, after winning four Cups in a row, were out of gas and battered.

The Penguins had 102 points last season, when they lost to Detroit in six games in the final, and they needed a mighty rush in the last two months to finish as No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference this season.

"I don't know if Pittsburgh's supposed to win because they have two great players. I don't think it's automatic that Pittsburgh should win because they lost the year before, either," said Hunter.

"They have to get it to another level. Detroit has so many guys who can score goals, like we had with Kurri and Anderson in support of Wayne and Mark." There is a similiarity in that today's Red Wings are also hurting going into the final as the Islanders were back in '84, with Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, Kris Draper and Jonathan Ericsson out for the semifinal clincher against the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday, and Marian Hossa's knee is also a question mark.

But whether the Penguins have the same resolve or talent level to beat the reigning champs, who are not slowing down as the Islanders were in '84, is debatable.

"I think you've seen two superstars grow along with (goaltender) Fleury, but that growth pattern is going to be tested against what I consider the most intelligent team I've ever seen," said former NHL coach and general manager Mike Milbury.

"Detroit has enough depth to handle half a dozen guys hurt and still managed to beat Chicago." "The theatre won't intimidate Pittsburgh like it did last year in Games 1 and 2 when they were shut out and they looked hopeless," said NBC/TSN broadcaster Pierre McGuire, who won a Cup ring with the Penguins in 1992 as part of their management team.

There is no doubt that knocking off the title-holders from Detroit would be particularly sweet for the Penguins, especially since it was Detroit who denied them the Cup last season.

That was certainly the case when the Oilers rebounded in 1984 to beat the Islanders.

"We had a pretty easy go (in the '83 playoffs) ... how many games (one of 12) did we lose before the finals?" said former Oilers defenceman Charlie Huddy, who was on five Cup winners.

"We thought we'd continue the roll but ran into a team with a lot of veteran leadership the first time around. We knew it would be hard to beat them because veterans sometimes have the edge over a bunch of young players. They knew how to win.

"Next year in the finals ... yeah, we wanted another crack at the Islanders again. We wanted to show them that we learned a lesson from the year before and were better prepared." Hunter said there are both psychological and physical hurdles to overcome if the Pens want to prevail over the Cup champs from Detroit this time around.

"We found out there was a price to pay to win, with all the bumps and bruises that go with it," Hunter said, "like Gretz and Kevin Lowe said after it was over in '83, when they looked into their dressing room and saw all the icebags. The Islanders paid more of a price.

"We were happy to be there the first time in '83 and we had respected the Islanders for so long ... sometimes you can respect a team too much.

"I know we paid a bigger price the next time around."

jmatheson@thejournal.canwest.com