...Plus, as much as I like Clarkson, I can't root for the Devils b/c of 95. I hope they choke and the Flyers come back. But I say that with all due respect Ariamus.

You think eliminating the two line pass rule was a bigger change than eliminating ties? Bringing in OT or going 4X4 in OT?
Why is OT during the season 4X4 but 5X5 in the playoffs?
At least they eliminated the shootout, which is what really turned me off to hockey. That and the Icelanders going into a thirty year slump.

Yes... a thousand times yes. Getting rid of ties in favor of the shootout was abjectly stupid, IMO. I hate seeing games decided by an "all-star skills competition". I would have no problem if they went back to ties and making wins worth an extra point. So three points for a win and one point apiece for a tie.

OT is 5x5 in the playoffs because playoff NHL hockey doesn't need any jazzing up, overtime or not...

Keep hoping...

BTW, you're assessment is cold, dead wrong... no offense. The Devils are above-average at best defensively. Not "extremely good" or even "still good". They do have some kids that are highly regarded headed up of course by Larsson but those guys are a year or two away from making a significant impact. The guys they have now are journeymen at best and the unit as a whole is blah... but what would I know? I'm only a season ticket holder who saw 60+ of their games this season.

That's OK though; you keep telling yourself it's the defense. I mean, it's the Devils so it has to be the defense, right?

Oh, and I never said the Devils were any great, super-charged offense. But you sell them short. Parise, Kovy, Zajac, Elias, Henrique, and Clarkson (this year) are all all-star caliber players. That's six forwards; not many teams you can say that about. And if everyone else is "average 2nd/3rd line", I'm quite OK with that considering the top two lines are replete with all-star caliber players.

It would have been interesting to see what they might have done if Zajac and Josefsson had been healthy all year and if Henrique weren't subject to the rigors of the long NHL season for the first time in his life. The fact that Zajac and the rookie have come on very strong in the post-season has me smiling ear to ear for this team's prospects next year and beyond. If they could ever re-sign Parise (not likely, I know), this could be a high-flying team for years to come.

As for your claim regarding how many goals a game a team needs to win in the playoffs, it's just downright silly on a number of levels. You say you don't need 3.5 goals a game to win. Yes, that much is true... but it's been true for 20 years. The last year in which the two Stanley Cup finalists combined average 3.5 goals or more per playoff game was 1993. And 1992 was the last time both finalists did that individually.

But 2 goals per game? I just went back and looked at every single finalist since and including 1991 (the period of NHL history I refer to as the "second expansion era") and of the 40 finalists in that period, only two have averaged less than 2 1/4 goals per game: Carolina in 2002 and Anaheim in 2003. Only two more have average less than 2 1/2 a game: Dallas in 2000 and Calgary in 2004.

The most anemic Cup winner in the period was Tampa in 2004 at 2.609 goals per post-season game. And a full 22 of the 40 finalists mentioned averaged 3 or more goals per playoff game. Finally, in the last few years, scoring in the playoffs is up and could be rising. The combined averages of the two finalists in each playoffs since the lockout has been 2.918, 2.854, 3.167, 3.298, 3.422, and 2.780.

It remains to be seen if last year's number was an anomaly and not a reversal of the post-lockout trend. I'm going to guess it's the former because of how much Vancouver's 2.320 goals per playoff game skewed the numbers for the finalists. The combined per game average for the other seven teams to advance from the first round in 2011 was an even 3.000 and that number for the three other semifinalists was 3.131.

This year, three of the six teams still alive have averaged 3 or more per game and it's still possible to have a final featuring two teams with averages at or above 3. Long story short, you're assertion that it's an incredibly defensive game and 2 goals per game is enough is wrong.

One final note; the assumption that it's the teams out west that "run and gun" is a conclusion mired in the late 90's and early 2000s. This year, as an example, the four highest scoring teams in the league were Eastern Conference teams. And since the lockout, in five of the seven seasons, East Conference teams made up at least half of the top 10 regular season scoring teams.

You and I can agree on one thing, though... how crazy this post-season has been. I remember hearing this stat before the playoffs where since something like 1975, something like only 2 or 3 teams that were not amongst the top third in scoring in the regular season won the whole thing. This year, if the Devils finish off the Flyers, NONE of the four semi-finalists will have finished in the top third in scoring during the regular season.