Devils, Kings earned right to battle for Stanley Cup

NEWARK -- The Devils and Kings have relied on similar, simple formulas to get to the Stanley Cup Finals, which kick off here Wednesday night.

There's no secret, no mystery on either side, even though these two teams from opposite coasts haven't played one another since October.

"Whoever's going to work harder is going to win," Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick said.

Both teams come into the Finals playing to their strengths: The Devils eked out a first-round win over the Panthers and then controlled series wins over the Flyers and Rangers with an exceptionally strong and balanced forechecking game, keeping the puck out of their own end and hemming in opponents in their zone.

The Kings have a big, bruising bunch of forwards, but they also have Drew Doughty, the best defenseman on either side, and Quick, the kid from Connecticut who has emerged as the best goaltender of this postseason.

"He's playing with confidence," Devils captain Zach Parise said. "We ran into the same thing last series with [Henrik] Lundqvist, with how well he was playing. Lundqvist had been playing great all the way up to the series. You can tell how aggressive [Quick] is with shots, how he's challenging the plays. You can tell he feels really good about the way he's playing."

Then again, so do the Devils, who seem to be the underdogs for the third straight series, even though they amassed more points in the regular season than L.A. Despite New Jersey's strong Cup pedigree, only Marty Brodeur and Patrik Elias have been to the Finals with the Devils; among their solid group of forwards, only Dainius Zubrus has played in the Finals.

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But they have rebounded from a rare terrible season in 2010-11 under first-year coach Peter DeBoer, who has had this team playing a very up-tempo, un-Devils style hockey.

"It was the perfect time for our organization to maybe make a little change with the type of forwards we have, with Parise, [Ilya] Kovalchuk, [Travis] Zajac, Elias," Devils president Lou Lamoriello said Tuesday. "It was time to loosen up a bit . . . [DeBoer's] done a fantastic job."

The Kings had immense trouble scoring in the first half of what was supposed to be a breakthrough season for a young, talented team. Darryl Sutter replaced Terry Murray as coach just before Christmas and it took until the cusp of the playoffs for the Kings to finally realize their abilities.

"When you have a guy that's pushing you to be better, not just you but everyone, it goes a long way," Kings captain Dustin Brown said of Sutter. "Maybe helping you look at yourself in the mirror."

Despite the lack of any sort of on-ice rivalry between these two franchises, there are plenty of connections. DeBoer coached 13 seasons in the Ontario League, four of which he coached L.A.'s Mike Richards in Kitchener. Kovalchuk spurned a free-agent offer from the Kings to sign his massive deal with the Devils two summers ago. Brown and Parise were linemates on the U.S. World Junior team in 2002, and one of them will be the first U.S.-born captain to hoist a Stanley Cup.

But those are just story lines. On the ice, it will be the same test of wills that both teams have passed with flying colors for the past six weeks.

"You're in the Stanley Cup Finals, it's the dream come true," said Kovalchuk, who had won exactly one playoff game in nine NHL seasons before this year. "We got two more weeks to battle hard and we'll see where we're going to end up."