I hate to pile on HT when he doesn't have much time for this, but I have to say my piece:
First off, anyone giving Malkin a boost for playoff heroics should also note that his winger Woody Dumart has one of the greatest drops in playoff production of all-time, going from 449 points in 772 regular season games (0.56 ppg) to a mere 27 points in 88 playoff games (0.31 ppg). I realize Dumart provided a lot other than just offense, but his playoff production is pretty ugly for a scoring line player in the ATD. Of course, playing with Malkin helps.
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As for why I think NJ should win the series (other than the fact that it's my team): The moderate but clear advantage on the blue line.
Here's how I see it:
Coaching is close to equal. Cecil Hart always gets drafted earlier than Green or Hitchcock due to supply and demand - the supply of coaches who can coach offense-first ATD teams is low, and the demand is high because it's easier to build an offense-first ATD team than a defense-first one. (Most of my previous teams were offense-first too). On merit, I don't see what Cecil Hart has on his undrafted contemporary Jack Adams, other than the fact that you need a certain type of team to play for Adams. (We almost drafted Adams over Green btw, but decided last minute that his style wasn't a really good fit for our team).
Forwards are fairly close IMO - Those other guys have a slightly better top 6 mainly due to even greater two-way ability than NJ's top 6. I think that NJ has a clear edge on the 3rd line , even if you prefer Larionov to Goyette. 4th line too if you think it matters. If Kenora has any advantage overall up front, it isn't all that much.
If this were the regular season, I'd say NJ has a big advantage in goal. I don't have time to go through the arguments that were posted in detail in the goalies thread, but suffice to say that Vezina is generally considered the best goalie of his generation, with Broda a distant 3rd best of his generation in the regular season but with a playoff resume that would make some argue for Broda over Durnan for #2. Since so much of Broda's value is in the playoffs, I'd say that NJ's advantage in goal is quite small here.
That leaves the blueline, which IMO wins the series for NJ. NJ's top two pairings are just better. Not by a huge amount (Kelly cancels out some of NJ's large advantage at #2 defenseman and moderate advantage at #3), but it is definitely there. By the way, I see Kelly and Fetisov as having primes that were equal both in terms of length and quality, but Kelly with a much more effective career after his prime was over (albeit at center).