Match made in heaven?

Now what do we have here?

Truth is, no one really knows.

The Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators, who square off tonight in Anaheim, Calif., in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals, have faced each other only once since October 2003. That hardly makes for an Original 30 family feud, and it certainly is a far cry from the old Adams Division days when the Bruins and Sabres tangled more frequently than Rosie and the Donald, Rosie and the Quarterback's Wife, and well, Rosie and her multiple personalities.

What we have here are two well-known commodities: the Ducks and their three-cornered defense of Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, and goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, and the Senators and their high-powered scoring trio of Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley, and Jason Spezza (although any line centered by Mike Fisher deserves at least honorable mention).

Does that make for a great matchup? Could be. For expert advice, consult a Ouija board.

Anyone who says yes with a straight face is only employing the standard late-May spin that the NHL always delivers two very good conference winners to its final. Just one caveat: the same folks espoused that in the spring of 2003, when the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim took on the Very Boring Devils of New Jersey, and though it went seven games (Devs win, Devs win, Devs win), it was not riveting hockey.

To recap: Four of the games were shutouts, and the Ducks didn't score their first goal of the series until Game 3 after twice losing by 3-0 scores in East Rutherford. Some 15 months later, the NHL entered into its ghastly lockout, and the hockey played in the '03 finals was why the league also used its 2004-05 dark time to rework the rulebook and attempt to flush out the kind of trapping, bumping, and grinding perfected by the Devils (for three Cups).

Let's all hope that the 2007 final is at least compelling enough for NBC, once it gets control of our hearts and clickers, not to dump out after three periods to take us breathlessly -- and without warning -- to a "Law & Order: TBD" premiere.

Until we see it unfold, Anaheim-Ottawa is more like a blind date, and for anyone who ever has lived the reality behind the excruciating words, "Oh, have I got the match for you!", blind dates can turn out even worse than watching seven games of the neutral zone trap. OK, I exaggerate. One blind date couldn't be any worse than four games of NZT.

"I don't know too much about them, to be honest," said Ottawa captain Alfredsson of the Ducks as Game 1 approached. "We're going to have some video sessions here, and go through them a little bit more. But obviously, I know some of their players: Samuel Pahlsson and [Teemu] Selanne . . . Niedermayer [from] when he played in New Jersey [as a member of multiple Cup winners]. And Pronger I haven't seen play a lot -- one of the best defensemen in the game today. Good team. You have to be to get to the finals."

Part of the Ottawa strategy, underscored by Alfredsson, will be to push the puck deep into the Ducks zone to try to wear down Anaheim's two defensive stalwarts.

"Make sure they work every shift," he said.

Bruins fans might recall how opposing forwards targeted Ray Bourque in the same way. For 20-plus years, including his Cup-winning season with Colorado, Bourque moved to the corner metronomically, traded hit for hit, and then moved the puck out. Niedermayer is more the mover and Pronger the shaker, and no one in the league this year really has had an answer for them.

Pronger, obtained from Edmonton last summer after he informed Oilers management that northern Alberta wasn't a good fit for his family, has been the key to the Ducks going from playoff contender to a true Cup contender. He is a solid shutdown defenseman. Mixed with the slick-skating Niedermayer, he can make it impossible for the best offenses -- and Ottawa's looks like the best right now -- to gain any traction.

"The exclamation point for us, and our whole organization, was when we acquired Pronger," said Ducks coach Randy Carlyle, the former Penguins backliner. "That set everybody's mind that we were going to be very, very serious about what we're going to do. The players were committed right from the start of training camp."

So much so, in fact, that general manager Brian Burke made it clear that one of his squad's great challenges in 2006-07 would be managing expectations. Much of the league, along with many of the pundits who cover it, pegged the Ducks as Cup finalists when Pronger was shipped to them in July. Less than 11 months later, they squeezed past the Red Wings, 4-2, in the Western Conference final to get there.

"We made a statement," said Carlyle, "that mediocrity was not going to be accepted."

Now here they are, about to open the finals on home ice, against the pride of Canada. Hockey's mother country hasn't won the Cup since the Canadiens rubbed out the LA Kings in 1993.

Ottawa, out of the NHL some 60 years before being brought back as an expansion club in 1992, last won the Cup in 1927, when it went 2-0-2 against the Bruins in a final in which the trophy was awarded to the first team to win two games.

Accounts of the day referred to those Senators as "the best poke-checkingest bunch in the history of hockey."

Thankfully, that's not the Senators of 2006-07. Honest, you'll like them, especially against the Ducks.

Have I got the match for you!

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.