It's Back to Tinseltown We Go, We Go

Vol III, No .19

The New Jersey Devils have achieved what the top three Western Conference teams could not. On Saturday night, the Devils beat the LA Kings in Newark.  

It was the Kings first road loss in the playoffs, after a flawless 10 - 0 record. It was the Kings first back-to-back set of losses since April. And it was the second game in a row that LA failed to get that magical #4 win. The Stanley Cup remains in its NHL case, and will travel west along with the two teams, NHL officials and the press entourage.

And here's one other strange stat.  In 70 years of Cup competition, any team that has gone up 3 - 0 in the beginning has never been able to win the cup in Game 6.  Series have ended in sweeps, with wins in Game 5, or with deciding Game 7s. But never a Game 6.

History may be made in the next four days. If the Kings win on Monday, they will be the first team in history to do it in a Game 6.  If the Devils win on Monday, it opens up the possibility that New Jersey could come back from a 0 - 3 game deficit and win a Cup.  The last time that was done was 70 years ago, in 1942, when the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Detroit Red Wings.

The series returns to LA, where the Kings have a 5 - 3 playoff record (with one of those losses at the hands of their Eastern Conference opponent).  The pressure is now on the Kings to pull out a victory before a home crowd, after an unsuccessful attempt on Thursday night.

After all, their road game performance is no longer flawless. The ran into Martin Brodeur and a stingy Devils defense - and could only put one puck into the net.  Sounds like what they've been doing to their opponents, but now, the Kings have suffered the same fate.

Lord Stanley is waiting.  One or two more games is all that is left of the 2011-12 NHL season. It's a great day for hockey!

P.S. Martin Brodeur had a stellar performance, allowing one goal on 26.  In the third period alone, LA out shot the Devils 9 - 3. But Ilya Kovalchuk remains a mystery. He was not a factor in tonight's game, with only one shot and a +/- rating of -1. When the season is done, odds are that there will be news about Kovy. Something's up and it has not yet been made public.