The Conference Finals Matchup: The New Jersey Devils (48-28-6, #6; Def. Philadelphia 4-1) vs. the New York Rangers (51-24-7 #1; Def. Washington 4-3)
The Schedule: From NHL.com, here is the series schedule with broadcasting information Note that there is no local game coverage; it's all national from here on out. Games with an * are only if necessary.
Game 1 - Monday May 14th, 8 PM EDT- New Jersey at New York Rangers- NBCSN, CBC
Game 2 - Wednesday May 16th, 8 PM EDT- New Jersey at New York Rangers- NBCSN, CBC
Game 3 - Saturday May 19th, 1 PM EDT- New York Rangers at New Jersey- NBC, CBC
Game 4 - Monday May 21th, 8 PM EDT- New York Rangers at New Jersey- NBCSN, CBC
Game 5* - Wednesday May 23th, 8 PM EDT- New Jersey at New York Rangers- NBCSN, CBC
Game 6* - Friday May 25th, 8 PM EDT- New York Rangers at New Jersey- NBCSN, CBC
Game 7* - Sunday May 27th, 8 PM EDT- New Jersey at New York Rangers- NBCSN, CBC
The Season Series: The Devils went 3-3-0 against Philadelphia in the regular season. Here are the recaps of all six games from here and Blueshirt Banter, SBN's Rangers blog
Game 1- NYR Wins 4-1: ILWT Recap - BSB Recap
Game 2- NJ Wins 4-3 (SO): ILWT Recap - BSB Recap
Game 3- NJ Wins 1-0: ILWT Recap - BSB Recap
Game 4- NYR Wins 2-0: ILWT Recap - BSB Recap
Game 5- NJ Wins 4-1: ILWT Recap - BSB Recap
Game 6- NYR Wins 4-2: ILWT Recap - BSB Recap
The Playoff Series They Just Played: And here's a list of all of the recaps of the playoffs games these two played in the first round. As you know, the Devils pulled off the "upset" against the Flyers, while the Rangers did it the hard way and took the Caps to game 7. Here's a list of recaps on both series.
Devils Series: Game 1 - Game 2- Game 3- Game 4- Game 5 (lol Bryzgalov)
Rangers Series: Game 1- Game 2- Game 3- Game 4- Game 5- Game 6- Game 7
The Last Time These Two Met in the Playoffs: The last time these two teams met in the playoffs was 2008, with the Rangers winning that series 4-1. In 4 years, a lot has changed between those two teams. The Rangers don't have Chris Drury, Jaromir Jagr and Scott Gomez (lol Gomez) anymore. The Devils don't have Paul Martin, John Madden or Jamie Langenbrunner anymore. Now we're going to be talking about Ilya Kovalchuk, Adam Henrique, Mark Fayne, Brad Richards, Ryan McDonaugh and Chris Kreider (well, it's mandatory if you're NBCSN).
The News Sources: With a new series, you're going to want to know the following people to get the latest news for each team.
The main sites for Devils news are Fire & Ice, which is where Bergen Record beat reporter Tom Gulitti reports his news; and NJ.com/Devils, which features beat reporter Rich Chere of the Newark Star-Ledger. You can follow them on Twitter, too: @tgfireandice for Gulitti and @ledger_njdevils for Chere.
As for the Rangers, the Bergen Record has their own beat writer blog for them- Andrew Gross' Rangers Rants. Another solid source for Rangers news is Pat Leonard and the Blueshirts Blog, which is part of the New York Daily News. You can follow Gross on twitter- @AGrossRecord and Leonard- @NYDNRangers.
The Predictions & A More Proper Preview: Expect to see our predictions either later today or tomorrow morning. A more proper series preview will also come soon as well. This is just a primer of all the basic information to follow this series with a little history. Unfortunately, SBN does not have an in-depth preview on the series as of now. John will compile our predictions tomorrow and have a proper preview of the series in whole soon enough.
In the meantime, please use the comments as an open discussion about this series. How do you like the matchup? Do you think the Devils aggressive forecheck will give the Rangers fits like the Devils did to the Flyers? Do you think they can beat Henrik Lundqvist? This series will be tense. All I hope is that the Devils are going to be playing some hockey in June.