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The Matchup: The New Jersey Devils (48-28-6, 102 points, #6 in East) vs. the Los Angeles Kings (40-27-15, 95 points, #8 in West)
The Schedule: From NHL.com, here is the series schedule with broadcasting information. Games with a * are only if necessary.
Game 1 - Wednesday, May 30th - 8 PM EDT - New Jersey Devils vs. Los Angeles Kings - NBC, CBC, RDS
Game 2 - Saturday, June 2nd - 8 PM EDT - New Jersey Devils vs. Los Angeles Kings - NBC, CBC, RDS
Game 3 - Monday, June 4th - 8 PM EDT - New Jersey Devils at Los Angeles Kings - NBCSN, CBC, RDS
Game 4 - Wednesday, June 6th - 8 PM EDT - New Jersey Devils at Los Angeles Kings - NBCSN, CBC, RDS
Game 5* - Saturday, June 9th - 8 PM EDT - New Jersey Devils vs. Los Angeles Kings - NBC, CBC, RDS
Game 6* - Monday, June 11th - 8 PM EDT - New Jersey Devils at Los Angeles Kings - NBC, CBC, RDS
Game 7* - Wednesday, June 13th - 8 PM EDT - New Jersey Devils vs. Los Angeles Kings - NBC, CBC, RDS
The Devils will have home ice due to their superior points total from the regular season.
For additional basic information heading into the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals, please continue on after the jump.
The Regular Season Series: The Devils and Kings actually played each other twice, and the Devils won both games. Here are the recaps of each game both from ILWT and Jewels from the Crown, the SBN Kings blog.
Game 1 - NJ Wins 2-1 (SO) - ILWT Recap - JftC Recap
Game 2 - NJ Wins 3-0 - ILWT Recap - JftC Recap
I would only take these two games with a grain of salt since they happened way back in October. That was when Martin Brodeur was injured in the first period in the first LA game and the Kings still gave significant minutes to Jack Johnson. Both teams are entirely different now.
The Playoff Series They Just Played: The Kings sliced through Vancouver and St. Louis in a combined nine games. They took the Phoenix Coyotes in the Western Conference Finals and dropped them in five. The Devils came from behind with two overtime wins to beat Florida in seven games; stomped all over Philadelphia in five games; and edged New York in their last three games to win the Eastern Conference Finals in six games. Here are the recaps of game in the Conference Finals series from their respective SBN blog:
Eastern Conference Finals - Devils won in six - Game 1 - Game 2 - Game 3 - Game 4 - Game 5 - Game 6
Western Conference Finals - Kings won in five - Game 1 - Game 2 - Game 3 - Game 4 - Game 5
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.
For the Kings, the main sources for news are Rich Hammond (@lakingsinsider) at the independent LA Kings Insider and the Los Angeles Times, which is mainly covered by Helene Elliott (@helenenothelen) and Lisa Dillman (@reallisa). The Los Angeles Daily News also has a Kings section, which features Jill Painter as a columnist. Another good aggregate news site for Kings news is appropriately called Kings News Daily. I thought it was an aggregator, but KND has original coverage, photos, and video too.
The Welcome Mat: Given the Devils got this far and Sergei at From Russia with Glove gave ILWT a shoutout on WFAN, there will be plenty of new readers and users. In fact, there already are several new sign-ups. To those of you who are new, I say Welcome! This is at least the third best Devils blog on the Internet. Here's the site rules and a glossary for commonly used terms here that aren't so common elsewhere (e.g. Corsi). If you're cool with everyone here and support the Devils, then you'll be cool. On behalf of the other writers, we hope you enjoy In Lou We Trust.
Some Factoids: The Devils and Kings never faced each other in the playoffs before. The Kings have made it to one Stanley Cup Final and lost in 1993. The Devils have made it to four Stanley Cup Finals and won three of them: 1995, 2000, and 2003. The Kings are 12-2 in the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs with an astounding road record of 8-0. The Devils are 12-6 with a 6-2 home record. One of those records has to give.
The prediction and series preview posts will come out over the next few days. In the meantime, please feel free to discuss the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals series in the comments. Can you believe the Devils actually made it this far? Do you think they'll be able to challenge Los Angeles in a way that Vancouver, St. Louis, and Phoenix couldn't? Can the Devils crack Jonathan Quick like they did to some goaltender in New York? Do you think the Devils can go all the way? I'm still struggling with these questions, but consider them anyway as we wait for Game 1 on Wednesday. Thank you for reading.