Ratings Don't Match Intensity of Stanley Cup Finals LOS ANGELES - The four previous Stanley Cup finals were compelling on the ice, all involving cities with deep hockey traditions and all providing the N.H.L. with a boost in television ratings. This year, the finals have been equally electrifying (both Games 1 and 2 were decided in overtime), but the series between the Devils and the Los Angeles Kings does not involve big-name clubs from places with deep hockey traditions. Not surprisingly, television ratings in the United States are down, as is interest among hockey fans in general. Unless the Devils can mount a comeback, these finals may be the least watched in the past five years. While Games 1 and 2 drew good ratings in New York and Los Angeles, according to figures provided by NBC, across the rest of the United States, overnight ratings for Game 1 were off 25 percent from last year's Boston-Vancouver opener, and Game 2 was down 12 percent from last year. The dropoff in national ratings for two of the N.H.L."s non-marquee teams stands in contrast to the rise in ratings for the Oklahoma City-San Antonio Western Conference basketball finals, likewise involving two non-marquee teams. In the New York market, which includes northern New Jersey, Game 1"s 5.1 rating was the second-highest ever for a Stanley Cup finals opener going back to 1976, and Saturday night's 4.1 was the best ever in the market for a Game 2. In Los Angeles, Game 1 drew a 4.2 rating, the best ever in the market for the opener of the finals, and Saturday night's 5.5 was the highest-ever local rating for a Game 2. "In L.A., hockey's definitely not something - no one knows anything about hockey," Kings defenseman Drew Doughty said last week. It's a great thing that people are finally coming to games. It's great that we can kind of put L.A. on the map as a hockey city. For Game 2, Buffalo led local markets in the United States with a 6.8 rating, followed by Los Angeles's 5.5 and New York's 4.1. Rounding out the top five were Minneapolis/St. Paul at 3.6 and Pittsburgh at 3.4. Hockey-crazed Buffalo usually leads in the national ratings. For Game 1, Buffalo had a 7.8 rating, followed by New York (5.1), Los Angeles and the Twin Cities (4.2 each) and Pittsburgh and - surprisingly - Oklahoma City (3.5 each). The Kings have not really mattered to hockey fans outside Los Angeles since 1996, when Wayne Gretzky left the team. The Devils have mattered to hockey fans for 15 years, ever since they emerged as a contender in the early 1990s with Martin Brodeur in goal and won three Stanley Cups in four trips to the finals through 2003. Even so, the Devils are not a marquee club. The 2008 and 2009 finals pitted Detroit against Pittsburgh, followed by Chicago vs. Philadelphia and last year's emotional Bruins-Canucks series, which ended in a riot that sacked parts of downtown Vancouver and in a parade through the streets of Boston that drew an estimated 1.5 million fans. The Red Wings, the Penguins, the Blackhawks, the Flyers, the Bruins and the Canucks are all important teams that fans across the continent know about, care about and either like or dislike, often intensely. The 2008 finals, in which Detroit beat Pittsburgh, marked the beginning of the N.H.L."s recent rebirth. Ratings in the United States reached a high of 4.4, more than double the high of 1.9 for the previous year's sparsely watched Anaheim-Ottawa series, the second finals carried by NBC. The Kings-Devils series may not be living up to those series in terms of interest, but it is still far ahead of the bad old days when the N.H.L. struggled on television, with nine consecutive Cup finals featuring at least one relatively insignificant hockey market. The streak started in 1998 when Detroit beat Washington, which in those pre-Ovechkin days had a minuscule hockey following, and continued through 2007, when Anaheim beat Ottawa.