Conventional wisdom has it that special teams and goaltending are what ultimately decide who wins in the postseason. The goaltending part of the equation has certainly been true in the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs to date. Power plays, not so much.

The Los Angeles Kings drag an unsightly 8.1 percent success ratio (6-for-74) into the Stanley Cup Final against the New Jersey Devils. As dominant as the team has been at 5-on-5, the Kings need to capitalize on their power plays against New Jersey if they are to lift the Cup when all is said and done.

Thankfully for LA, the team has been spectacular on the penalty kill, not only surviving 52 of 57 penalties (91.2 percent) but also tallying five shorthanded goals in the playoffs to date. But that sort of pace is impossible to keep up forever. The Devils are a respectable but far from spectacular 18.2 percent (12 for 66) on the power play in the playoffs, after going 17.2 percent for the regular season.

The Devils led the NHL in shorthanded goals this season (15) and also boasted the league's best penalty kill at 89.6 percent. As a matter of fact, opposing teams scored just 27 PPGs for the entire season against New Jersey. Although the NJ penalty kill in the playoffs has not been especially dominant -- 16 PPGA, a pedestrian 74.6 percent success ratio and just one SHG to date -- it is clear they have the capacity to get on a roll and generate momentum of their penalty kills.

Oddly enough, the Devils have been almost as vulnerable to yielding shorthanded goals (league-worst 13 in the regular season plus 2 in the playoffs) as they have been at scoring them on their own penalty kills. So perhaps this is an area that LA can exploit even if their own PK percentage goes down a bit.

However, from both a passing and special teams standpoint, the Kings' longer layoff may work against them in Game 1 in Newark on Wednesday. While I would give the slight nod in the goaltending matchup to Jonathan Quick over 40-year-old Martin Brodeur, I think that special teams are the number one area to watch in Game 1 and throughout the series.

From a five-on-five standpoint, I expect an evenly matched and low-scoring series. So the ultimate winner is probably going to be the team that turns more of its man advantages into goals and avoids backbreaking shorthanded goals.

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