Rested Devils Ready for Kings in Stanley Cup Finals
2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs

Newark, NJ

Giving his team a regular day off between games to battle fatigue has paid big dividends for New Jersey Devils head coach Peter DeBoer.

During the "Battle of the Hudson" series against the New York Rangers, DeBoer admitted publicly that he allowed his team to rest during off-days while Rangers coach John Tortorella pushed his players to the limit.

Now, the Devils are in the Stanley Cup finals while the Rangers are still reeling from the Eastern Conference finals defeat to their crosstown rival.

"My feeling is that when we practice, we practice hard," DeBoer earlier admitted to the New York Post. "And if we don't need to practice we should be resting and away from the rink both mentally and physically. I think the guys have enjoyed that part of it".

"We've had some hard practices, longer than normal," said Devils' captain Zach Parise. "But it's been nice to stay away from the rink a little bit and get your mind off everything."

"He always knows when we need rest," Ilya Kovalchuk said of DeBoer. "It doesn't matter if we won the game or lost the game."

The Devils are rested and ready when they face the Los Angeles Kings in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals in Newark.

After knocking off the Rangers in Game 6 on Friday, DeBoer gave the Devils a two-day rest to prepare themselves physically and mentally for the Kings.

The Devils needed that rest because they are facing a younger Kings side. The Devils, as a team, have an average age of almost 28 years while the Kings are a tad above 25 years old.

The Devils showed their age before the turn of the year, when they had a mediocre 13-12-1 record. They performed so poorly that no Devil was selected to the All-Star team. Then one week of rest rejuvenated the Devils, who went 9-1-1 after the break.

Rest is important in this series because of the bizarre playing schedule. There are two days between Games 1 and 2 on Wednesday and Saturday in Newark and only one day to travel coast-to-coast before next Monday's Game 3.

The league did give the teams two days between Games 4 and 5, but it's another one-day break between Games 5 and 6 with another transcontinental flight included.

But like what he did in the past, trust DeBoer to save energy.

Larry Murphy breaks down the key matchups of the Stanley Cup Final between the Devils and Kings