by Joe Lami

Eastern Conference Finals Tampa Bay-NY Rangers: The Tampa Bay Lighting who open the Eastern Conference Finals at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers for game one on Saturday did not have the most stellar start for road games at the beginning of the season. The Rangers play great at home. Game one is probably the most important game of an entire series almost as important as game seven.

Teams that usually win game one tend to win the series and the Garden on Saturday night will be absolutely rocking and the Rangers were in that same position last season where they are back in the conference finals and as the cup representatives from the east they couldn’t beat out L.A. in the finals. The Rangers definitely have the advantage at home, Tampa however are playing good hockey on the road so it should be interesting.

The Rangers Martin St.Louis is still in the hunt for his first goal of the post season but it’s not his scoring total that’s been the answer for the Rangers it’s been about St.Louis’ leadership on the club. St.Louis has won a cup with Tampa Bay. The Lighting’s Ryan Callahan is one of the better representatives for their leadership he was traded for St.Louis back in March and now he’s on the Lighting ironically facing his old club.

Western Conference Finals Chicago @ Anaheim: The Ducks have won eight of nine games of these playoffs and they have lost only one game and that was against Calgary. The Flames got lucky in that they won when they scored a goal with 20 seconds in the third period to tie it to force O.T. and got the game winner on a delay of game penalty in O.T.

The Ducks have been one of the best playoff teams this season and they will have a challenge against Chicago and the Hawks have the most post season experience and this will be an outstanding series. This is going to go seven games it’s a toss up. It helps that the Ducks have the home ice advantage at the Honda Center, the Mad House on Madison (United Center) is just as difficult to play in.

You really need to hold your nerve in this series and losing a home game could be detrimental in a series like this. The Hawks have a great advantage in this series with the goaltending of Corey Crawford and that’s something the Ducks goalies Freddy Anderson and John Gibson don’t have. The Ducks have been riding Anderson and Anderson has been absolutely great but this is where it could come down to concerning playoff experience. Expect Crawford to have the upperhand in experience and he will be outstanding.

Joe Lami is covering the NHL Stanley Cup Conference Finals for http://www.sportsradioservice.com catch his podcast below