Heading into the Stanley Cup final, the Marian Hossa "angle" was obvious enough.

After helping the Pittsburgh Penguins reach the 2008 Cup final against Detroit, Hossa rejected a generous Pittsburgh contract offer -- and several other proposals -- to sign a relatively paltry one-year contract worth $7.45 million U.S. with the Red Wings.

Some members of the Penguins roster acted as though they'd been betrayed by Hossa. A bit rich, that. This was not exactly Mario Lemieux leaving the Penguins, but a rental player, acquired by Pittsburgh at the March trading deadline, choosing to go where the money wasn't ... but where the smell of championship champagne lingered in the air.

Recently, as the Penguins and Red Wings danced toward another collision for the Cup, voices could be heard reminding everyone how deliciously ironic it would be if Pittsburgh were to win, just as Hossa jumped to the other side.

Ironic? Sure.

Delicious?

Not a chance.

If the Penguins were to come back in this series after being down two games to none to Detroit, hockey people who know Hossa would take no delight in that twist.

Regarding Marian, justice would be another Red Wings victory, bringing Hossa his first Stanley Cup championship after more than a decade of fine work with the Ottawa Senators, Atlanta Thrashers, and -- over the past calendar year -- with Pittsburgh and Detroit. Here would be one of the game's really good people rewarded for following his heart and head instead of his wallet.

Go back 11 months and put yourself in Hossa's shoes.

It's approaching July 1, the running of the bulls in the NHL free-agent world and Hossa is the top forward available.

There are offers on the table to go just about anywhere, including Montreal, Edmonton and, of course, Pittsburgh.

Hossa kept asking his agent, Ritch Winter, if there had been any interest from Detroit. There was, but when Red Wings general manager Ken Holland told Winter he wanted to maintain captain Nicklas Lidstrom's status as the highest-paid roster player, it meant the Red Wings could not be in the $8-million-per-year neighbourhood of the rest of the Hossa bidders.

Fine, Hossa said. Let's do a one-year deal for less than $7.5 million.

Now, put yourself in the agent's shoes ... after he has picked up the dropped telephone.

"I have never seen a player get so excited to take $85 million less than he was offered elsewhere," Winter told The Canadian Press after the deal with Detroit was official. "It's almost incomprehensible, even to an agent."

No, it's particularly incomprehensible to an agent.

"But Marian is a special player," Winter said.

He has that part right.

Sadly, Senators fans didn't fully appreciate Hossa when he was in Ottawa. He was one of several European players blamed for playoff defeats despite being the Senators best player in the spring of 2003, the year Ottawa was a goal away from the Cup final. Hossa scored 16 points in 18 games during those three series, five points better than any other Senator.

Hossa ought to be wary of long-term deals. The last time he signed a three-year contract, with Ottawa GM John Muckler, Hossa was traded to Atlanta by the time the ink dried.

When he joined the Penguins last year, before beating the Senators in a first-round sweep, he told me he had grown frustrated "chasing the puck all the time" in Atlanta.

It was one of the big factors in Hossa signing with Detroit. Not greed. Not just a chance to win the Stanley Cup, but a chance to play the ultimate puck-control game with the ultimate puck-

control team.

For a while against the Anaheim Ducks, the Red Wings didn't look like they would get this far. Hossa hadn't been scoring much and Detroit was down 2-1 in games heading into Game 4 in Anaheim.

As he can, Hossa dug deep and buried the Ducks with two goals in a 6-3 Detroit victory. In what remains their toughest test this spring, the Red Wings prevailed in seven games.

With so many incumbent stars in Detroit, Hossa seems to perform the extraordinary only as required. His nature is not to try to supplant Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg or Pavel Datsyuk as the go-to guy in Motor City.

So, in the Western Conference final against Chicago, with Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Kris Draper and Jonathan Ericsson out of the lineup late in the series, there was Hossa playing like a man possessed.

For entire shifts he owned the puck against the Blackhawks, easily the best player on the ice for either team as the Red Wings took the 'Hawks in five. Hossa was not going to let his Cup opportunity slip away just because Detroit was banged up.

"It's hard to repeat," Ducks winger Teemu Selanne had said about the Red Wings and Hossa during the series with Detroit, "so it's good to have new blood from guys who are hungry to win the Cup."

Hossa, he of the "new blood," turned 30 this year, still a bit young to be the annual veteran-on-his-last-legs, sentimental-choice-to-win-a-Cup, but a worthy champion nonetheless.

Just a different Hossa "angle" to consider.

Subscribers can read previous columns by Wayne Scanlan at ottawacitizen.com . He can be reached at wscanlan@thecitizen.canwest.com .