Battle Of The Hudson Begins Tonight
Today’s segment will be of little or no interest to most of you for the simple reason you don’t care about hockey. I understand that and ask you stay with me anyway for this rare and brief discussion centering on men who wear skates.
The NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs are underway and will run through the middle of June. It’s an 8-week grind to chase the most coveted trophy in sports and in recent years has featured many upsets starting with the first round.
Most of us who identify has “hockey fans” will be focused on the opening round series between the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers. The upstart Devils won 3 of 4 regular-season meetings and finished 5 points ahead of the Blueshirts in the Eastern Division standings. Those numbers don’t mean anything now although it does give the Devils home-ice advantage in this best-off-7 series which begins tonight at the Prudential Center.
Most experts feel this is a very even matchup with the Rangers biggest advantage coming in experience as they went through the playoff wars last year and know what it takes to win. The Devils are probably a year ahead of schedule when it comes to being a playoff contender but don’t tell that to players like Jack Hughes
and Nico Hischier who led a 49-point improvement from a year ago. The Devils season can already be considered a success while for the Rangers anything less than a deep run would be a major disappointment. They will count on players like Mika Zibanejad and goalie Igor Shesterkin to advance past Jersey.
This should be a lot of fun (and stress) for fans of the two teams in the shore area and beyond. The puck drops at 7pm tonight and I can’t wait. Let’s Go Rangers!
