OK..Here we Go..The 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Finals matchups (Yeah Baby!!!),... :-D

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

First of all, are in order for the NJ Devils and LA Kings (with very strong performances from Martin [The Door] Brodeur and Jonathan [no nickname] Quick 'between the pipes'), on reaching the Stanley Cup Finals.

Now it might be a early to tell (and I'm not getting out my crystal ball either ), who will be winner (but I do have a very soft heart for Martin who became my dominate idol 'in the nets' (with no over-sized equipment (Michelin Man effect),...but by pure goaltender skill).

But, I'll take for the Cup in seven (7) games.

2012 NHL Stanley Cup Finals Schedule

Game 1: Wed. May 30 -- Los Angeles at New Jersey, 8 p.m. (NBC, CBC) Game 2: Sat. June 2 -- Los Angeles at New Jersey, 8 p.m. (NBC, CBC) Game 3: Mon. June 4 -- New Jersey at Los Angeles, 8 p.m. (NBCSN, CBC) Game 4: Wed. June 6 -- New Jersey at Los Angeles, 8 p.m. (NBCSN, CBC) *Game 5: Sat. June 9 -- Los Angeles at New Jersey, 8 p.m. (NBC, CBC) *Game 6: Mon. June 11 -- New Jersey at Los Angeles, 8 p.m. (NBC, CBC) *Game 7: Wed. June 13 -- Los Angeles at New Jersey, 8 p.m. (NBC, CBC)

"Every Game, Every Night, Because It's the Cup"!!!

[jumper]

I'd dearly love to see Ilya get a Stanley Cup ring.

[Doc4]

My earlier posts in the other playoff thread ...

I've decided to throw my support behind the Devils. I'd like to see Brodeur win one more cup, and then hang 'em up ... go out on a high note, as it were.

Brodeur vs. Quick ... a changing of the guard in goalies? Will we see it?

... looks like I get to see Brodeur and Quick after all.

LA has had a lot more rest than NJ, but NJ hasn't had a layoff to get rusty in. (I'd rather have the rest, but that's always the debate.)

[Go West Young Man]

Ugh, pretty much my worst nightmare finals. Can both teams lose?

[nycalling]

Speaking as a heart broken New York Rangers fan, go Kings.

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

By Charles McGarth - Published: May 31, 2012 - NY Times

"A lot has changed since 2003, the last time the Devils were in the Stanley Cup finals. The team has a new owner, a new coach, a new, much nicer rink, but worse parking. The fans now text between periods, and for Game 1 against the Los Angeles Kings, many were wearing battery-powered devil’s horns of a sort I don’t remember seeing before.

Martin Brodeur holds records for most wins, most shutouts, most overtime wins, most 40-win seasons; most saves, most games and most total minutes by goaltender. Most of the characters on the benchhave changed as well. Unless you want to count Larry Robinson, who was aspecial assistant coach in 2003, all that remain of that club are Patrik Eliasand, of course, the ageless Martin Brodeur, who is now 40 but whose face is still boyish and unlined, his limbs still rubbery. He skates out at the beginning of every game the way he always did, with those long, powerful strides, then sets about scuffing up the crease, almost hopping from side to side, before squaring up and taking a few imaginary shots. He performs these chores with the unhurried methodicalness of a shopkeeper rolling up the shutters and sweeping the sidewalk.

Wednesday’s game, which the Devils lost in overtime, 2-1, was a fairly typical evening’s work for No. 30. Brodeur gave up the winning goal, it’s true. When the Kings’ Anze Kopitar came in on a breakaway, Brodeur tried that scorpion move of his, where he plants his forearms on the ice and kicks out his legs in back, and Kopitar slid the puck past his left pad. Had he tried to lift it, the shot would almost certainly have been blocked.

But Brodeur made more saves than his opponent, the aptly named Jonathan Quick, 14 years younger, and arguably tougher ones. He warded off a barrage of shots at the end of the third, and earlier in that period he stuffed Jordan Nolan, who took several whacks from close in. In the second period he made a leaping snag. A little later he blocked a rising shot and batted away the rebound the way someone brushes away a bee from his head.

Brodeur, a guaranteed Hall of Famer, now holds so many records they might be a record in themselves: most wins, most shutouts, most overtime wins, most 40-win seasons, most saves, most games and most total minutes by a goaltender. A lot of his statistics are tributes to durability, you could argue, and not necessarily to brilliance, and of these the most interesting (and the one most unlikely to be repeated) is that he is the only N.H.L. goalie to play 1,100 games or more with a single team. He has been such a presence with the Devils that the goalies who came before him — Glenn Resch, Chris Terreri, Sean Burke — now seem like distant, archaeological figures.

Brodeur won his first Stanley Cup for the Devils 17 years ago, but started in a playoff game against the Rangers in 1992, when he was 19, so he is the only goalie to appear in the playoffs both as a teenager and as a 40-year-old. He has been around the Devils for so long, in fact, that he is the last active team member to have worn the old, unfortunate red-and-green uniform. And until recently some of the Jersey faithful had begun to take him for granted or, worse, suggested that his days were numbered.

And there were times when he seemed to be playing like a dinged-up 39-year-old. Some finger-waggers with longer memories also like to blame Brodeur for the Devils’ hasty exits from the playoffs in 2009 and 2010. There was the tap-in he surrendered to the Flyers’ Daniel Carcillo in overtime of Game 3 in 2010, for example, tilting that series inexorably in Philadelphia’s favor. This was the same year, remember, when he had been yanked as the starting goalie for the Canadian Olympic team, after yielding a loss to the underdog United States, and replaced by Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo.

And what about the two goals notched in 47 seconds by the Carolina Hurricanes to give them a first-round victory in the 2009 playoffs? Somebody should have muscled the ’Canes’ Jussi Jokinen away from the back door, it could be argued, that one wasn’t Brodeur’s fault. But Eric Staal’s shot from the top of the circle with just 30 seconds to go? Marty should have had it, or that’s the way it looked to this crestfallen, disbelieving fan, kneeling on his TV room floor.

Brodeur has on occasion been a perplexing, head-scratching goalie. He is not as pure a puck-stopper as, say, Dominik Hasek or Patrick Roy, and has a way sometimes of making the unmakable save and then letting in a soft one. His critics will point out that he has not been an exceptional playoff goalie, and that while he performed adequately, or even more than adequately, in the Devils’ three Cup-winning campaigns, he has never “stolen” a series the way Roy did several times for Montreal. This may be why there is a noticeable vacancy in Brodeur’s trophy case: he has four Vezina Trophies, three Stanley Cup rings and two Olympic gold medals, but no Conn Smythe Trophy, awarded every year to the most valuable player in the playoffs. In 2003, the last time the Devils won the Cup, that piece of hardware went to the losing goaltender, Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

But surely consistency and longevity count for something. Brodeur’s lapses are relatively few compared with his overall steadiness. Unlike the mercurial Ilya Bryzgalov, for example — brilliant one game, dismal the next — he is not streaky: he is someone you can count on. For whatever reason, he has been rejuvenated this year, and the Devils would not be where they are now without steadiness, constancy and maturity. They wouldn’t have even got past the Panthers.

Brodeur is without a doubt the best puck-handling goaltender ever, so adept at skating out of the crease, gathering in loose pucks and dishing them up ice to a waiting forward that the league had to institute a rule to keep him from roaming too far and turning into a third defenseman. He even makes saucer passes — which fly through the air and land flat on the ice — and it’s not much of a surprise that he has already set a playoff assist record.

And he is a treat to watch. Brodeur early on rejected the butterfly technique, now orthodox among so many younger goaltenders, in favor of a more eclectic [Hybrid], style that owed something to the example of the great Russian goaltender Vladislav Tretiak. He does not make goaltending look easy or scientific, a matter of cutting down the angles and playing the percentages. He makes it look hard and acrobatic. He slides, he flops, he sprawls. He makes saves on his back, batting the puck away with his stick, or on his stomach, pulling the puck underneath him, like a watchful lion snagging an errant cub. In a game against the Atlanta Thrashers a few years ago I’m pretty sure I saw him stop a puck while literally standing on his head. Brodeur is not a show-off, and yet his style has great crowd appeal — awakening those prolonged chants of “Maaar-ty, Maaar-ty” — and probably bench appeal as well. It’s hard to imagine that his teammates don’t take notice, and feel inspired to rev up their own efforts.

What’s different and remarkable this year is that Brodeur, at an age when most goalies are flipping through their scrapbooks, appears to be playing with the enthusiasm of a rookie. “This is fun,” he said after beating the Rangers in Game 2 of that series, and he clearly meant it. Before the Kings series he even suggested that instead of retiring at the end of the season, as he had earlier hinted, he might stick around for another year. Or maybe not. All he needs is four more wins for an excellent chance at filling that gap on the trophy shelf. There are worse ways for a goalie to finish."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/sp...-gets-old.html

"To Guard and Protect…for only God saves more than Goaltenders". CBJ

Attached Image - Martin Brodeur holds records for most wins, most shutouts, most overtime wins, most 40-win seasons; most saves, most games and most total minutes by a goaltender.

[Kairtane]

It's amazing to think I've watched guys like Brodeur and Lidstrom play for their entire careers. Now I know what grandpa meant when he talked about Sandy Koufax and Roger Maris.

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

Hey, Hey...the are still alive after their 3-1 Win over the in Game 4!!!

That said, although Marty (the Mrs. and I), and the rest of the Devils had seriously underestimated the Kings 'snipers' and Jonathan (Lightening), Quick and even with the Kings up 3 Games to 1…there's a way to beat Quick (top-shelf…blocker side), and the Devils proved that in yesterday’s Game 4 in LA.

Hmmm... I believe the Devils have found Quick’s 'Achilles Heel' besides finding a crack in the Kings defense, pressing forward on the forecheck and transition (although the Devils PP and Kovalchuk is almost nonexistent).
On a hunch...baring any major break down, I'll still take for the Cup in seven (7) games!!!



Martin Brodeur (30) stopped 21 shots for the Devils, who will play host to the Kings in Game 5 on Saturday night.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hoc...av&sct=hp_nv_a

"Every Game, Every Night, Because It's the Cup"!!!

[Doc4]

Even the Kings fans are hoping that Jersey wins game 5 ...


















... back to LA for game 6, and if someone doesn't comp one free ticket behind the Devils' bench, they're friggin' incompetent.

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

Even the Kings fans are hoping that Jersey wins game 5 ...

... back to LA for game 6, and if someone doesn't comp one free ticket behind the Devils' bench, they're friggin' incompetent.

Doc:
Ooh La La...friggin sweet...I say 'season tickets'!!!

"Every Game, Every Night, Because It's the Cup"!!!

[senatorxmg]

Go Devils!!!! I want to watch more hockey this season! Ha ha!

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

Go Devils!!!! I want to watch more hockey this season! Ha ha!

senator:
...and the Devils are up 2-1 at the end of (with many opportunities for the Devils to score more), 2 periods and it’s such joy to watch Marty execute ‘old-school’ kick, stacked pads, paddle-down, scorpion, ferris wheel, and lobster [http://www.app.com/article/20120529/...th-Stanley-Cup], style saves!!!

"Pings off the Pipe are a Goaltenders Best Friend"!!!

[ouch]

Even the Kings fans are hoping that Jersey wins game 5 ...


















... back to LA for game 6, and if someone doesn't comp one free ticket behind the Devils' bench, they're friggin' incompetent.

Ian, you know that I caught during game 4.

I love this place so much, because everyone thinks the same way I do.

[Walter Sobchak]

I'm really glad the Devs won a couple. Hopefully they'll force a game seven. What's better than a game seven in the finals?

I laughed and laughed when I saw DeBoer turn and look through the glass at that woman. I'm sure he was just checking out the cool necklace she was sporting...although for a quick second I thought I saw steam puff out of his ears and heard the AHOOGA horn blowing in his head.

Not that I've ever found myself in a similar situation...

[ouch]

That picture should bear the caption why men are retarded.

[packersfan117]

I'd like to see the Kings pull one down for the first time, but I'd also like to see Brodeur hang up his pads on a high note. I'm a Red Wings fan, so really I'd just like to see good hockey played.

[Doc4]

I want a Game 7.

If the Kings win it, I won't be unhappy, but I'll be cheering for Marty!




(Late in Game 2, DeBoer should have called for a stick measurement on one of the King's defencemen. Just sayin' ...)

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

Well, my predication and was wrong with the ‘routing’ the 6-1 (good show and a well deserved win, the Conn Smythe Trophy to Jonathan [Lightening] Quick and the to the Kings).

In my opinion, the Devils lost the game due to lack of discipline (I guess the team didn’t get Coach DeBoer’s memo)… the math: a major (Devils Bernier face-boarding of Kings Scuderi that led to 3 Kings goals), a double minor, four minors, an automatic game misconduct and two 10-minute misconducts.

At the end of the day…“maybe Los Angeles will become a hard-bitten hockey town in the future, but winning that first Cup is a grand place to start” (and hockey fans are now wondering if Marty is going to hang up the pads).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...sct=nhl_t11_a0

Hockey...The Coolest Game on Earth!!!

[Walter Sobchak]

Congrats to any Kings fans out here.

I was pulling for Marty, but it may be a good boost for hockey to have some A-List names hopping on the bandwagon...kind of like when #99 joined the Kings.

[ouch]

Hockey should not be played West of the Mississippi or South of the Mason-Dixon Line.