No. 4 New Jersey Devils (46-29-7, 99 Points; Beat the Lightning last postseason before getting ass-whupped by Ottawa) vs. No. 5 New York Rangers (42-27-13, 97 Points; Swept the Thrashers before losing to Buffalo in what someone upstate probably considered "The Battle of New York.")

At Devils home games, there's a fairly common chant in the cheap seats: "Rangers Suck," followed quickly by "Flyers Swallow." On the occasion of this latest installment of "The Battle of the Hudson," and with the Flyers lurking in the conference playoffs as well, we feel it's necessary to examine this observation from the Devils' faithful and determine who, exactly, gets it worse: The Rangers or the Flyers?

Taking into consideration the explicit sexual connotation of the chant, the Flyers appear meant to be the more demeaned of the two teams, reaching a punctuated level of emasculating finality. But the swallower, at least to us, infers someone who has reaped the rewards but hasn't put in the effort; someone, for example, who picks up the bowling trophy without ever having seen a pin go down.

The sucker, as it were, infers someone who has put in the work but does not reach finality or reap any reward. True, the inherent homophobia in the chant makes the sucker as humiliated as swallower; but isn't there something more noble about the workmanlike symbolism in the Rangers' sucking rather than the privileged insinuation of the Flyers' swallowing? Especially if the work is the reward for the Rangers. Or, as Pearl S. Buck once said: "To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth."

OK, considering the chant, perhaps using a quote with the word "fountain" may not have been appropriate. Or a quote from someone named "Pearl," now that I think of it.

Key Match-Up for New Jersey: Any Devil against Jaromir Jagr. Ever since the days of Scott Stevens concussing anyone he could lay a shoulder into, the Devils have always had an effective game-plan against Jagr. Whether it's Jay Pandolfo or John Madden or Colin White or David Clarkson, New Jersey will flat out piss Jags off - might like they did when these teams last met in the postseason, and Jagr injured his arm trying to punch Scott Gomez in the back of the head. If the Rangers are going to win, they need Jagr to not be the streaky headache he's been in the regular season.

Key Match-Up for New York: Sean Avery against any Devil. Everyone's favorite asshole has already stirred the pot against Marty Brodeur, Zach Parise and Clarkson this season. Avery scrapped with Clarkson yesterday, in fact. He's not scoring much these days, but Avery certainly knows how to get under your skin and get you off your game. He could be the most annoying thing New Jersey's seen since gay governor jokes.

Worst Case Scenario for New Jersey: The series goes six games, preventing the Devils from setting a franchise record with four sellouts in the first round of the playoffs. (I kid, I kid.) Oh, and four words: Starting Goalie Kevin Weekes.

Worst Case Scenario for New York. Chris Drury fails to conjure up any postseason magic, Lundqvist is outplayed by Marty, and Jagr says "fuck this shit" and gets on a plane for Omsk by Game 3.

Well, If You're Going To Twist My Arm: Devils in seven. I have tickets to Game 2 in Jersey. Yes, I'm already warming up my vocal chords.

Vital YouTubeage: Teach your children well...even if they're Islander fans:

No. 4 Anaheim Ducks (47-27-8, 102 Points; Current keepers of the Big Silver Thingy) vs. No. 5 Dallas Stars (45-30-7, 97 Points; Wasted three Marty Turco shutouts and lost to Vancouver in Round One)

Has another team gone from somewhat acceptable Stanley Cup champion to completely loathsome as quickly as the Anaheim Ducks? I mean, besides the 1995 Devils?

Seems like just yesterday we were happy for Teemu Selanne on the occasion of his first Stanley Cup; joyful that the Bros. Niedermayer were able to drink from the same silver chalice; happy for J-S Giguere for winning the big prize after dealing with the difficult birth of his newborn son early in the playoffs; and generally in awe of everything George Parros.

Fast forward a season, and Selanne and Scott Niedermayer are lazy veterans whose procrastination and eventual success may lead to a rewriting of the NHL rulebook; the Ducks are viewed as a collection of physical brutes, led by perhaps the most talented thug this side of Tupac in Chris Pronger; heck, even Parros's mustache doesn't turn the key anymore.

Meanwhile ... hey, remember when everyone was about to hand Dallas the Stanley Cup after the Brad Richards trade? Well, since then, he's been outscored (12 points) by both of the forwards who went to Tampa Bay - Jussi Jokinen (18 points) and Jeff Halpern (14 points). The Stars are also missing defenseman Sergei Zubov, which would really hurt if they had a chance in hell of winning the Stanley Cup this season.

Key Match-Up for Dallas: The Stars' power play against the Ducks' kill. If Dallas has a prayer of winning this series, it needs hang goals on that Anaheim defense whenever it can - especially with the Ducks missing scorer Corey Perry and having a second line that fluctuates between being pointless and worthless. Anaheim's kill was 12th in the League; Dallas went 9-for-23 on the power play in its five wins over the Ducks this season and 0-for-15 in its three losses. I'm no math major, but...

Key Match-Up for Anaheim: Chris Pronger's elbow against any player whose head is about that height. Pronger just finished his suspension for trying to break a Ryan Kesler scissor-lock by slicing off Kesler's leg with his skate. Please recall last postseason, when Pronger was suspended twice for violent infractions against smaller players. This does not bode well for Mike Ribeiro.

Worst Case Scenario for Dallas: After a one-postseason reprieve, Marty Turco's five-hole once again becomes as well-trafficked as the Lincoln Tunnel.

Worst Case Scenario for Anaheim. The offense is non-existent, Marty outplays Giggy and Pronger has another "episode" that derails his postseason.

Well, If You're Going To Twist My Arm: Ducks in six. Turco's good for a couple of wins, but Anaheim's physical advantage is too much for the Stars. And Dallas losing the first round is, at this point, a rite of Spring.

Vital YouTubage: Trying to win a truck with a parody of "The Office." Needs less Duck, more Schrute.

More Arnie/Ducks photos found here.

Compared to other geographic blood feuds, the intensity between Anaheim and Los Angeles is completely underappreciated.
Even as the defending champs clinched a playoff spot last night and the Kings continued to royally suck, their fans approach these battles of California by as much cynicism and funny as any other NHL hate-fest. Hey, if this rivalry is good enough to get Troy Polamalu to stop worrying about the NFL's anti-Fabio flowing hair policy and enjoy some puck, then it's good enough for us.

The Ducks beat the Kings in the skills competition last night, 2-1, as rookie goalie Jonas Hiller started in place of the back-spasming Giggy. The win gave Anaheim the "California Cup" this season, having gone 10-3-1 against the Kings and the Sharks, who are the "Nightline" in this Leno vs. Letterman feud. Much more entertaining than the Ducks/Kings game were the barbed volleys between the fan bases before and after the final horn. Like Ducks loyalist Girl With a Puck declaring the loss the "end of the Queens' season." Or the indispensable Rudy Kelly on Battle of California previewing the game thusly: "LA Kings (#1 in 4th liners!) @ Anaheim Ducks (#1 in gay!)"

The Lincoln-Douglas debates, they're not. But that's what's endearing about this rivalry between two teams in non-traditional hockey markets: There's a certain goofiness that's inherent here - not as goofy as the Ducks' third jersey from a few years back, but goofy nonetheless. That's not to diminish the passionate loathing these fans have for each other, as expertly explained by writer Marie Stiles in her pre-game tale about being a Kings fan at The Pond. She also exhibited some passionate loathing after the Kings' loss for her own coach, Marc Crawford, who mismanaged his talent in the six-round shootout. Brian Willsie? Seriously:

"...like fucking clockwork, Willsie made a pitiful shootout attempt, Hiller made an easy save, and I went to pull out the knife that Marc Crawford had stabbed in my back. Thanks, Crow. Thanks for throwing in the towel in the 6th round. Thanks for saying "F YOU!" to every single Kings fan."

I just realized I typed "non-traditional hockey market" above, and I apologize for that. The NHL's been in Los Angeles as long as it's been in Minnesota, so L.A. is a hockey town. The battle lines on this are drawn: You can either be some dickweed from England who attends a late-season game for a team in the draft lottery and makes sweeping generalizations about hockey apathy in California; or you can appreciate the nuttiness of this Ducks/Kings rivalry, and wonder what it'll look like if the Kings decide to join the living once again. In the meantime, enjoy hockey in LA for what it currently is: An excuse to watch L.C. from "The Hills" sucking down some overpriced suds.

With Peter, North. Last night's 6-3 win for Colorado over Vancouver will be remembered for two reasons. First, it may be the loss that triggers a Canucks' spiral down into the eighth seed at best, or out of the postseason at worst; as the Vancouver Sun put it, "Their grip looks feeble and their season doomed if they play as recklessly and ineptly defensively as they did against the Avalanche." Roberto Luongo was yanked after giving up five goals on 23 shots. It's never good to yank your Luongo that early.

More important, it could be the game where Colorado discovered lightning in a bottle: Peter Forsberg, Paul Stastny and Milan Hejduk, a line that combined for nine points last night. Colorado is now 5-1 with Floppa in the lineup; they're also just two points in back of the Flames for the five seed. Ducks and Avs in the first round, with either Pronger or Forsberg grabbing their 5-iron after the series? Yes, please.

In other action last night, Edmonton refused to throw a pity party for itself after a 3-1 loss to Minnesota. Niklas Backstrom had 32 saves for the Wild, who moved back into first place in their division. Meanwhile, the Blackhawks have clearly decided to Commit To the Draft.

If the Playoffs Started Today. The Campbell Conference playoff picture changed almost completely last night (Minnesota and Dallas in the first round ... if these teams had any balls, Dallas would put up the name "Stars" and Minny would put up Marian Gaborik in a winner-takes-all wager). With six games tonight, it's the Wales Conference's turn for some clusterfucking: Sidney Christ returns for Pittsburgh against the Islanders; the Bruins play the Leafs after learning Marc Savard has a broken back...but don't worry, it's the good kind; Ovechkin's in Tampa; Buffalo continues the long and winding choke in Ottawa; and the Rangers play a Devils team that couldn't score if they were a Mega Millions winner at the Bunny Ranch.

Puck Headlines

* Kevin Greenstein selects MVPs for all 30 teams. Somehow, when he got to Montreal, he spelled "Alexei Kovalev" as "Andrei Markov." Whoops. [New York Sun]

* Criminal charges for Patrick Roy's kid? Good to know that police action in Canada is now being fueled by famous offspring on YouTube clips. [Mike on Crime]

* Dennis Miller's brother is producing a movie that's filming at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh. Hey, I'm as big a Powers Boothe fan as the next guy, but even I'm happy it's not "Sudden Death 2: Die Suddener." [The FanHouse]

* So 10 of the 12 teams with the lowest payrolls are currently out of the postseason picture. Water is wet, oranges are orange, all of it. [USA TODAY]

* Awesomeness: Introducing the Mike Lange Tournament of Quotes. Well, shave my face with a rusty razor! [Going Five Hole]

* Finally, two foreign guys have a homo-erotic hockey fight in their backyard. Or as I like to call it, "Thursday."

We congratulate the Anaheim Ducks on their first Stanley Cup title last night. We can't imagine the relief of Ducks fans across the nation, who were able to sleep easy last night, knowing they must no longer fear that they, like their grandfathers and other ancestors, will die without seeing their beloved, historic Ducks win that long-awaited title.

Congratulations, Ducks. The Stanley Cup is finally back where it belongs: Orange County.

Ducks Win! [The Battle Of California]

(Getty Images Photo)

Because this is probably one of the last NHL posts we'll be doing for a while — everyone seems to think this series is done tomorrow night — we thought we'd check in on what the top NHL bloggers are saying. Bear with us, non-hockey fans: It's almost over.

• James Mirtle: "As for the Senators: If you can't win at home against a team missing its top defenceman, you don't deserve to win the Stanley Cup."

• Behind The Jersey: "The thought of Chris Pronger raising the Stanley Cup over his head makes me want to throw up. What is the verb for vomit in German? I just happened to learn it this week. It's "übergeben." I knew my German class would come in handy someday."

• On Frozen Blog: "Truth be told, I'm not an Alanis Morisette fan. Just not my thing, nothing personal. However, she and her 20,500 background singers taught me a lesson in how one is supposed to sing their national anthem tonight. I've never been at a sporting event (or any other event for that matter) where a crowd sang so enthusiastically and without self-consciousness the anthem of their country. Maybe I haven't been to the right games. Maybe our anthem is too tough. Maybe I've just been oblivious (which happens with an uncomfortable regularity), but it occurs to me that how it was done tonight is the way it should be done."

Oh, and Japers' Rink actually watched the game from the Canadian embassy. That's awesome.

WFLA, Channel 8 in Tampa, is opting to air the All Children's Telethon instead of Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. I think this is something that WFLA does every year, regardless of what's schedule to air on The Peacock, so I don't know if it's something that puck fans should take personally. Still, though... it's the Finals.

I feel for hockey fans, who are continually reminded of the second-class status of their sport of choice, but on the other hand ... seeing Chris Kunitz out there mucking and grinding doesn't do much to help sick kids. Hopefully, something can be worked out to keep everyone happy.

Where's Game 3? Updated [Bolts Blog]

We know hockey gets a bad rap, around here and everywhere else, but we would really like to point that we enjoy watching hockey, particularly that of the playoff variety. But man, seriously, No one is watching these games. The rating for Game 1 was 0.72, which is "Quite Frankly" bad. Allotting for the inherent weirdness of Nielsen ratings, that translates to about 523,000 people watching Game 1 of the sport's championship. That's five Tennessee home football games.

NHL Ratings Comically Bad [Lion In Oil]
I Like The Way Snrub Thinks [Chris' Sports Blog]

Sure, the finals of a major sports league are going to be on Versus, but that's no reason not to care, right? After the jump, Eric lets you know what you gotta know. And we'll see you all tomorrow.

—-—-—-—--

Is there any sports league in recent memory that has gone into its championship round with more negative mojo than the NHL? Just when the righteous anger over NBC's dumping of Game Five of the Eastern Conference Finals to Versus was beginning to subside, Gary Bettman and company found another rake to step on as the closely guarded news of the sale of the Nashville Predators broke smack dab in the middle of a lengthy six day layoff before the start of the Stanley Cup Finals.

With nothing else to cover, and with the opening game of the Finals being played in Anaheim at end of a long holiday weekend in the U.S., talk inevitably turned to the disastrous tenure of NHL "Commissioner for Life" Gary Bettman and the abject failure of his strategy to create a national television footprint by expanding the league to the American Southeast and West.

What all of this rage is obscuring — and let's be honest, rage is the only emotion that any fans feel about no matter the reason or the season when the subject is Commissioner Bettman — is that we're on the cusp of what promises to be a pretty compelling matchup on the ice, ironically, one that's between two teams that were part of the post-1990 expansion era and only recently were rescued from the scrap heap.

To say that the Ottawa Senators have had an interesting history leading up to their first appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals would be an understatement. Perhaps the most frustrating season in their history had to be 2002-03, where the Senators posted 113 points in the regular season to win the President's Trophy only a few months after then-owner Rod Bryden took the team into bankruptcy. On-ice failure matched off-ice embarrassment in the Eastern Conference Finals when the Sens were dispatched by the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Devils in seven games.

But the Senators team that went into bankruptcy with Rod Bryden came out of it with pharmaceutical magnate Eugene Melnyk. The new stability in ownership mirrored the steady performance in the regular season, as the Sens remained at the top of the regular season standings even as playoff success continued to elude them.

Ironically, one of Bryden's last decisions as owner the season when he had the team declare bankruptcy was to bring old NHL hand John Muckler in to run the club as General Manager. After the lockout, Muckler rolled the dice and sent the popular Marian Hossa to Atlanta along with Greg DeVries for a man looking for another chance in another city: Winger Dany Heatley. Safe to say, it's not a deal most general managers would have made, but Heatley has made the most of his second chance in the NHL, far from the scene of a car accident he was responsible for in Atlanta that killed teammate Dan Snyder.

Heatley has posted back-to-back 50 goal seasons in Ottawa, as part of what's become one of the best lines in all of hockey along with Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza.

But perhaps the best decisions Muckler ever made involved the players that he let get away. First, it was less than a year ago that Zdeno Chara, who Ottawa had acquired from the New York Islanders in what is now widely seen as a highway robbery deal, played out his contract with the Senators to test the free agent market. Figuring that retaining Chara would mean breaking up the rest of his team, Muckler let him walk and sign a five-year $37.5 million deal with Boston.

Rather than try to replace Chara outright, Muckler did a pair of deals that more than compensated for the 6'9" Chara's absence, signing free agent Joe Corvo from the LA Kings and acquiring Tom Preissing in a three-way deal with the Sharks and the Blackhawks. The result: Ottawa hardly missed the Slovak giant, as Ottawa continued to boast the deepest, and best balanced defensive corps in the NHL.

Next, Muckler said goodbye to the oft-injured Dominik Hasek, opting instead to sign Martin Gerber from the Carolina Hurricanes. Though Gerber would eventually make his mark in Ottawa holding down a spot on the end of the bench for the emerging Ray Emery, it seems as if the Swiss goalie has a magic all his own.

But before this season's version of the Senators gelled into an unstoppable postseason force, they and head coach Bryan Murray — best known for underachieving everywhere else he's been behind the bench — struggled through the first half of the season, barely making it to .500 by January 1. But after that, there was no team in hockey that could touch them, as they posted a 27-7-8 record the rest of the way. Perhaps the most memorable of those games came on February 22 and 24, when the Sens traded 6-5 decisions with the Buffalo Sabres amidst a blizzard of fisticuffs triggered in the first game when Chris Neil took out Buffalo co-captain Chris Drury with a vicious, but legal hit.

Click here for the February 24 followup bout. After those two games, it should have been clear to everyone that these weren't your Daigle/Yashin version of the Senators, something that Pittsburgh, New Jersey and Buffalo discovered to their chagrin in the playoffs.

As for the Anaheim Ducks, the original Mickey Mouse franchise, this marks their second trip to the Finals overall and second in the last four seasons. With a Disney pedigree, most hardcore NHL fans hated the Ducks through most of their early history. After all, what self-respecting hockey fan would catch themselves pulling for a team named after a series of hockey flicks aimed at the under 12 set? The ire only increased when, in an early demonstration of corporate synergy, the Ducks seemed to become the official home team of ESPN 2. Later demonstrations of this strategy manifested themselves in five-minute SportsCenter features on Mark Schlereth's career as a soap opera actor as well as "ESPN Hollywood." Don't say you weren't warned.

But even Disney's deep pockets had their limits, as the company dumped the Ducks just one season after their first trip to the Finals when they sold the team to local Anaheim businessman Henry Samueli for just $50 million, a $25 million loss from the expansion fee that Disney paid when they were granted the franchise in 1993.

Though the Ducks, like so many other recent failed Stanley Cup Finalists, failed to even make the playoffs the following season, Samueli quickly got to work putting the franchise on sounder footing. Only three days after his purchase of the team was approved by the league's Board of Governors, Samueil hired ex-Vancouver Canucks GM Brian Burke as the Ducks GM.

Since taking over, it's clear that Burke has put his stamp on this Ducks team, one that played tougher than any other in the NHL, leading the league in fighting majors in both the regular season and the playoffs. Even better, with most of the hockey press calling for a crackdown on fighting, Burke was the one General Manager to propose modifying the instigator rule.

Burke, more so than any player on the Ducks, is this team's outsized personality. A master at playing the media, Burke's masterpiece might have been his trade deadline blog over at USA Today that managed to tick off just about anybody who was mentioned in it, while Burke stood pat at the deadline refusing to part with any prospects for any of the playoff rentals flooding the market.

But Burke's personality shouldn't obscure his hockey smarts, and in particular three deals that put the Ducks in the position they're in today. First, he re-imported one-time Duck Teemu Selanne back into the fold, with the Finn responding in much the same manner as Heatley in Ottawa, scoring 98 goals in the last two seasons after he looked finished following a stint in Colorado before the lockout.

Burke did one better when he shipped sure-fire Hall of Famer Sergei Federov to Columbus in exchange for Tyler Wright (who?) and Francois Beauchemin. In doing so, not only did Burke get the aging Federov's contract off the books in Anaheim, he also acquired Beauchemin, who has turned into a rock on defense and is regularly clocking better than 30 minutes of ice time per night in the playoffs. Even better, losing Federov meant that Colgate's Andy McDonald finally got the ice time he needed to mature into a front-line center, a chance he's made the most of, along with Anaheim forwards Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and reclamation project Chris Kunitz (out for remainder of the playoffs).

But the deal that will go down in hockey history that put Anaheim back in the Finals wasn't triggered by Burke at all, but rather by unspecified personal family reasons cited by Chris Pronger, as he pushed the Oilers to move him just hours after the Oilers lost Game Seven of the 2006 Finals to Carolina. In the end it was Burke who won the auction, sending Joffrey Lupul, Ladislav Smid, a first rounder in 2007, a second round pick in 2008 and a conditional first rounder in 2008 for the former league MVP and Norris Trophy winner — a deal that they'll be hating in Edmonton for a long time coming.

The results were pretty easy to see, with the Ducks starting hot, playing through a lengthy injury to Pronger and finishing things out well enough to secure the second seed in the playoffs, where they finished off three of the best goalies in the league in Niklas Backstrom, Roberto Luongo and Hasek.

So what to expect next? For those looking for a rundown on Ottawa, click here; for the download on the Ducks, click here.

While the Senators have held a physical edge in every series thus far in the playoffs, they're going to meet their match in an Anaheim team that's gotten used to running their opponents off the ice. In that light, I can't help but to expect this series to become a game of attrition, with Ottawa's depth both up front and on the blue line to exact a toll on a Ducks team that may rely too much on Pronger, Scott Niedermayer and Beauchemin — a trio that regularly puts in 30 plus minutes a night during the playoffs.

The next critical matchup has to be Ottawa's top line of Heatley, Alfredsson and Spezza against Anaheim's checking line of Travis Moen, Rob Niedermayer (too many Niedermayers!) and Sami Pahlsson. Simply put, we're looking at the best scoring line in the league against the best checking line in the league. Given that Ottawa's trio have been just about the surest bet in the postseason, my best guess is that things aren't going to change now. But if they fail, I'm not sold on the ability of Ottawa's other three lines to pick up the slack.

Weighing most heavily on my mind when it comes to the Ducks were the significant periods during the Western Conference Finals when they were simply outplayed by the Detroit Red Wings, most recently in Game Six where the Red Wings very nearly made up a three goal deficit in the third period. The difference in those moments was always J.S. Giguere, who we can count on to steal at least one game in the Finals. Unfortunately for Ottawa, I'm not sure the same sort of performance is in the cards for Ray Emery, a goalie who has simply done everything Ottawa has asked of him up to this point. However, as my NHL Fanhouse colleague Tom Luongo has pointed out, that's mainly due to the fact that Ottawa has kept the game simple for Emery, and not allowing their opponents to take advantage of Emery's greatest weakness, his lateral movement.

So while I've already gone on the record at Off Wing picking Anaheim to win it all, all the indicators, save one, are pointing in Ottawa's favor. Then again, some believe that the Ducks are the first real test that the Senators have faced in this playoff, and I'm inclined to agree given the massive gap between the conferences that was revealed during the regular season.

My best instincts tell me Ducks in seven, but only because Giguere steps up and saves Anaheim's bacon.

Anyway, the Less-Than-Mighty Ducks kick off their Western Conference finals series tonight against the Red Wings, a franchise with no history of postseason success and a sedate, subdued, almost apathetic fan base. (After Buffalo's loss of home ice advantage last night, the Bfloblog is strangely quiet this morning.)

The Ducks are feeling confident, but the Red Wings are the Red Wings: They always think they're gonna win.

Again, no predictions from us, but over at James Mirtle's blog, they even have pie charts. Mmmm, pie.

Game 1 Vs. Anaheim [On The Wings]
Let The Game Begin [Ducks Blog]