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No. 2 New Jersey vs. No. 7 Anaheim
Continental Airlines Arena may be an outdated hole, but it will be the sports center of the universe for the next three weeks with the Devils in the Cup finals and Nets one win away from the NBA Finals. The Devils and Ducks made an intriguing offseason trade last summer with Jeff Friesen and Oleg Tverdovsky heading to New Jersey and Petr Sykora going west to Anaheim -- the Mike Commodore, J.F. Damphousse, Igor Pohanka and Maxim Balmochnykh parts of the deal can be discounted due to their lack of contributions at the NHL level this season. Actually, Tverdovsky's role has been so limited that the deal can be simplified to a Friesen-for-Sykora swap at this point, with Friesen getting the better of that head-to-head matchup so far in the postseason. And when the trade isn't under the microscope, the battle for bragging rights between the Niedermayer brothers or the matchup of French-Canadian goaltenders who grew up idolizing Patrick Roy likely will be. There is likely to be a lot of low-scoring games, so be sure to put regular in the coffee maker rather than decaf, because these plodding styles may require some serious caffeine to keep folks awake to the end.
The lowdown: The Ducks have rolled to an impressive 12-2 postseason record, but -- and isn't there always a but? -- they have only had to beat Curtis Joseph, Marty Turco and Manwayne Rolonandez. CuJo has never been confused with a clutch playoff goalie, Turco couldn't recapture his regular-season magic after his late-season sprained ankle, and the Wild's two-headed monster ran out of steam in the West finals after pulling two huge upsets. In other words, the Ducks haven't seen anything like Martin Brodeur in the postseason. And not to take anything away from what Jean-Sebastien Giguere has done, but Anaheim's defense has played so well in front of him that Jean-Sebastien Aubin or Johan Sebastien Bach could've backstopped the Mighty Ducks to the Stanley Cup finals, too. The Wild are essentially a poor man's version of the Devils, so now the real McCoy is going to test Anaheim further after it dispatched with the Minny Me imitation of New Jersey's trapping style.
Devils in six
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