Devils and Kings, who would've thought it would come down to these two teams at the start of the season? Ok, maybe the Kings, but to put it in perspective of how far Los Angeles has come, in the preseason, I had Terry Murray winning coach of the year. Funny thing is he got fired and now Daryl Suter is the coach.
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| Martin Brodeur |
But let's look at the tale of the tape between these two teams. Los Angeles is 12-2 in the playoffs and 8-0 on the road, defeating each of the top three seeds in the process. New Jersey had a difficult first round matchup with Florida, but then they have looked very strong in disposing the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers. Sure, Los Angeles is the "hotter" team coming in, but if Los Angeles was playing the Rangers and the Flyers, they would have only won in six or seven games as well. Los Angeles is the more rested team and that rest has served them well in the playoffs, winning convincingly on opponents ice in game one.
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| Jonathan Quick |
Now let's analyze some of the matchups in this series. New Jersey looked great offensively against the stingy Rangers as well as against the Flyers. Los Angeles doesn't have quite the defense the Rangers have, but they certainly have the best goaltending in this years playoffs in Jonathan Quick. The most interesting matchup in this series will be the Devils power play v.s. the Kings penalty kill. The Kings have been exceptional killing the power play this postseason. On the flip side, the Devils, as exemplified by Ilya Kovalchuk's goal in Game 6, look tremendous on the power play. That is the unit matchup I am most looking forward to in this series.
The other factor in this series will be whether the Devils can slow down the potent Kings attack led by Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown. The Devils aren't great defensively, but they are gritty. Martin Brodeur, as great as he has been, needs to step up in this series because he is the backbone of the Devils defense. On the other side of things, the Kings will need to get more from their third and fourth lines to compete with very component third and fourth lines from New Jersey. Which goaltender will rise in this series, Brodeur or Quick? Which stars will shine the brightest, Parise and Kovalchuk or Kopitar and Mike Richards? Which supporting players will be the biggest factors, Adam Henrique and Danirus Zabrinus or Jeff Carter and Dustin Brown? So many questions, but without further ado, here are my game by game predictions for the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals.
Game 1- New Jersey 3-2 OT- Los Angeles comes out a little tight and New Jersey feeds off that energy. The game winner comes very late in the first over time as Patrik Elias scores his second goal of the night to give the Devils a 1-0 lead in the series.
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| Patrik Elias |
Game 2- Los Angeles 4-2- LA responds in game two with three first period goals, two coming from Simon Gagne as the Kings knot up the series.
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| Simon Gagne and Dustin Brown |
Game 3- Los Angeles 6-1- Feeding off the energy of the Staples Center, the Kings respond early once again and are lead by a hat trick from Mike Richards and three assists from Justin Williams.
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| Mike Richards and Dwight King |
Game 4- New Jersey 1-0- Martin Brodeur turns in a legendary performance in Game 4 and Zach Parise's second period goal stands as the game winner to send the series back to Newark tied at 2.
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| Zach Parise |
Game 5- Los Angeles 3-1- A stout defensive effort by the Kings and two third period goals give the Kings a 3-2 lead with a chance to clinch the cup on home ice.
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| Drew Doughty |
Game 6- New Jersey 2-1- The Devils stave off elimination from the first goals of the series from Ilya Kovalchuk to send the series to a decisive game 7.
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| Ilya Kovalchuk |
Game 7- New Jersey 4-2- A tight game seven turns into more of an offensive game with the Devils putting just enough by Jonathan Quick to win the Stanley Cup.
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| Travis Zajac and Ilya Kovalchuk |
New Jersey Devils in Seven Games
Conn Smythe Winner: Zach Parise, New Jersey Devils
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| Zach Parise |
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