The 2014 Stanley Cup Finals begin tonight, as NBC is surely in a state of nirvana, as the get the nation’s two biggest TV markets, with the Los Angeles Kings and the New York Rangers. TheSportsNotebook has done reviews of the road both teams took to get here, both in the regular season and how each elevated their game in the playoffs.
The New York Rangers are in the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 22 years, as they get set for Game 1 tonight on the road in the Staples Center at the Los Angeles Kings. Here’s a look at how the Rangers got here, both in the regular season and then in the playoffs.
The Stanley Cup Finals being tonight at the Staples Center in Los Angeles (8 PM ET, NBC). The Los Angeles Kings are the betting favorite against the New York Rangers. Here’s a look at how the Kings got here, which includes debunking some myths…
The first two games of the Western Conference Finals in these Stanley Cup playoffs have convinced me that all that’s necessary for a great player to turn his game around is for me to criticize him publicly. First it was New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist. Now it’s Los Angeles Kings forward Jeff Carter.
I’m sure no one at NBC is complaining, because what the league does have are the three biggest American markets, along with a team from Canada that is only the most storied organization in the history of the sport. As conference finals go, you could do worse than Chicago, Los Angles, New York and Montreal as your foursome.
The Boston Bruins won the President’s Trophy, given to the team with the most regular season points, and the Bruins then ousted the Detroit Red Wings in five games to open the playoffs. But it all came undone in the second round, as Boston lost Game 7 last night at home to the Montreal Canadiens by a 3-1 count. How did it happen?
For the third straight year, the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup, and there was no doubt they were the best team. Although unlike the previous two years, Montreal had to at least sweat out the Boston Bruins in the finals of the 1978 Stanley Cup playoffs
Is there a goalie in the NHL with a better knack for coming up small in a big moment than New York Rangers’ netminder Henrik Lundqvist? New York has a goalie that is consistently one of the best in the NHL through the regular season. His presence looms over a playoff series because you know that if he gets locked in, he can personally carry his team. And yet it never happens. Last night was the latest case in point.
It would be a stretch to say the Boston Bruins are in a life-or-death spot in their NHL playoff series with the archrival Montreal Canadiens, trailing 2-1 in games after last nights’ 4-2 loss in Game 3. But the Bruins certainly need to have alarm bells going off and the biggest is the fact they’re most valuable asset—goaltender Tuuka Raask—is simply not getting it done in this series.
The Penguins, a team with immense offensive talent, can usually be relied on to fold up like a tent if they’re hit hard and forced into defensive games, which is usually what a postseason series against a genuinely good team amounts to. But after dropping Game 1 to the New York Rangers, the Penguins have won two straight games of the kind they usually blow
St. Louis grabbed the first two games of this series. Then they never won again. If the fans felt like they had been here before, it’s because they had—in 2013, the Blues played the defending Stanley Cup champions (the Los Angeles Kings in that instance), won the first two games and then never won again. Both losses came in the first round.
When the NHL playoffs began, my upset pick was Penguins-Blue Jackets series, with a pick of Columbus in seven games. My rationale was that Sergei Bobrovksy, the Vezina Trophy winner (the goaltending equivalent of the Cy Young Award) in 2013 would give the Blue Jackets the edge against a vulnerable Pittsburgh defense, at a time of year when defense and goaltending take on a bigger importance.