—AP Thursday, at Lightning, 7, MSG+ Saturday, at Lightning, 3, Ch. 4 Monday, at Devils, 7:30, MSG+ Wednesday, at Devils, 7:30, MSG+ Saturday, April 21 at Lightning, TBD Monday, April 23 at Devils, TBD* Wednesday, April 25 at Lighting, TBD
AP
In what turned out to be an epic win of a trade that helped the Devils accelerate their path back to relevance, GM Ray Shero nabbed forward Taylor Hall from Edmonton in June 2016 for defenseman Adam Larsson. And on the back of the transformative 26-year-old’s MVP-caliber season, the Devils snapped a five-year postseason drought. New Jersey lost a tiebreaker to fellow wildcard Columbus and now must face beast of the East Tampa Bay. Here’s how the two sides match up.To illustrate Hall’s value, his 93 points (39 goals, 54 assists) were 41 more than New Jersey’s second-best point producer, Nico Hischier, the top pick from last year’s draft. And only one other forward had at least 40 points, though Kyle Palmieri's 44 points in 62 games is a pace that probably would’ve beaten out Hischier.Tampa Bay, on the other hand, has two elite forwards and several other difference-makers up front. Nikita Kucherov (100 points) and Steven Stamkos (86 points) are as imposing a duo as there is in the NHL. Former Ranger J.T. Miller has benefited being surrounded by such talent, putting up 18 points in 19 games since being traded at the deadline.Brayden Point was impressive with a 30-30 season, Yanni Gourde was a standout rookie with 64 points and there’s plenty of postseason experience down the depth chart with Chris Kunitz, Ryan Callahan, Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn and Ondrej Palat. Tampa Bay is simply much deeper and led the NHL with 3.54 goals per game. EDGE: LightningSteve Yzerman’s acquisition of Ryan McDonagh from the Rangers shored up the Lightning’s blue line and made them one of the favorites for the Stanley Cup. Victor Hedman is head and shoulders above every other defenseman in the series and is a candidate to win his first Norris Trophy. Mikhail Sergachev has done well for a 19-year-old and Anton Stralman continues to be steady.Shero’s acquisition of Sami Vatanen for Adam Henrique in November provided a nice boost to the Devils’ defense corp, which includes impressive rookie UFA Will Butcher, but once again the Lighting has a better collection of talent. EDGE: LightningAndrei Vasilevskiy was sensational the first half of the season, and ultimately finished with 44 wins and eight shutouts, each mark tying for the league lead. Over his last 31 appearances the 23-year-old has a 3.39 goals against average and .900 save percentage. But this is still a very talented goalie who will have had five days between games when he takes the Lightning net Thursday after playing a career-high 65 games this season.Meanwhile, Cory Schneider hasn’t won a game since Dec. 27 and lost his job to Keith Kinkaid, who over his last 20 games has a 2.25 GAA and .932 save percentage. Don’t get caught up in recency bias here, though. EDGE: LightningJohn Hynes, the 43-year-old plucked from Pittsburgh’s AHL team before the 2015-16 season, pushed all the right buttons for the Devils to help them return to the playoffs. Jon Cooper has a 243-143-40 record across five-plus seasons in Tampa and took his club to the Stanley Cup Final in 2014-15 after topping the Rangers in the conference final, and returned to the conference final in 2015-16. EDGE: EvenNew Jersey finished in the top 10 in both power play and penalty killing. Tampa Bay’s 23.9 power-play percentage was third-best in the NHL but they have been exposed shorthanded, killing off just 76.1 % of penalties, fifth-worst in the league. EDGE: EvenLightning in five. The Devils are fast and exciting but their opponents are legitimate Cup contenders. DEVILS VS. LIGHTNING Best of 7 series GAME 1: GAME 2: GAME 3: GAME 4: *-GAME 5: *-GAME 6: *-GAME 7: Taylor Hall is having an MVP-like season, but the Devils will need much more than that if they hope to beat Lightning. *-if necessary