Hockey Bits: Conference finals begin; USA versus Russia at Worlds; Dal Colle a champ

TV Guide

• The Rangers and Lightning begin the Eastern Conference final today at 1 pm on NBC. For Raw Charge, it means pulling the Band-Aid off of the Martin St. Louis wound one more time.
• Game 1 of the Western Conference final is tomorrow at 3.
• If you're in an international mood, you can watch Team USA take on Team Russia at the IIHF Worlds. Game time is 1:00 pm on NBCSN NBCSports.com. Russia will have reinforcements in the form of one Alexander Ovechkin.

Islanders stuff

• Michael Dal Colle and the Oshawa Generals are your 2014-15 OHL champions. It's kind of a big deal. [LHH | Yahoo | Durham Region]
• I wrote about the first of a few great shootout goals by John Tavares this season.
• Today is the anniversary of the Islanders' third straight Stanley Cup victory, a sweep of the upstart Vancouver Canucks in 1982. [NYI Skinny]
• Long Island Business News slams the Coliseum rebuild and the people that screwed it up. The main story is behind a paywall, but this additional column gets the point across.

Other things

• No, the Rangers aren't usually a huge deal in New York sports and that's okay. [Cyrgalis]
• If you were rooting for the Capitals last series, you aren't alone. [Leafs fan view at PPP]
• Marc Bergevin's season-ending press conference didn't instill confidence at Eyes on the Prize.
• Oh good. Another round of Coyotes Arena Drama just in time for Summer. TSN lays out the issues and Five For Howling lays waste to the salivating Canadian vultures circling the franchise.
• Mike Babcock, Ken Holland and Darren Dreger sit in a room and talk about the coach's job search. An end to the madness is coming soon. [TSN.ca]
• Very cool: The Red WIngs will name their prospect tournament's trophy after late CapGeek founder Matthew Wuest. [WIIM]