PITTSBURGH – Their Game 4 fiascoes loom ominously over the Devils, who have twice faced disaster because of them. This is where these playoffs have gone so wrong each time for the defending Stanley Cup champs.
Along with that jinx today comes the additional threat of Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr reuniting to make New Jersey start sweating again.
Two victories from a return to the Stanley Cup finals, the Devils have again reached the crossroads where they’ve made incredibly wrong turns each time this spring. They are 0-2 in Game 4, and followed both of those losses by losing Game 5 both times, too.
Each time, the Devils had control of their series, and each time, it began slipping away in Game 4, a situation they’ll try to halt when they face the Penguins here this afternoon.
“That’s certainly something we have to address, but something I hadn’t thought about,” Larry Robinson said.
They hold the upper hand again with a 2-1 lead in the Eastern Conference final, but if they make it 3-for-3 in blowing Game 4 today, their dreams of repeating are again in jeopardy. A New Jersey victory today would require the Penguins to follow last year’s Devils as the only teams since expansion to survive that deficit this late in postseason.
“They are too good a team to be able to come back against,” Lemieux said. “[Today] is a huge game for both teams.”
But another Game 4 loss, and the Devils would be flirting with disaster again, the third time perhaps being fatal. It would become a best-of-three for a shot at the Cup.
“Two out of three series are killer series, especially going against the power they have,” Robinson said.
They are wary of doing again what has tarnished their reputation in these playoffs.
“The tendency we’ve had after a great game is falling off with a not-so-great game,” Bobby Holik said.
Holik, however, says the increased stakes of nearing a trip to the finals should prove incentive enough.
“It’s almost come down to making your year worthwhile,” Holik said. “It’s getting up there, the importance of the game.
“A lot of teams would be happy with this situation. We’re not.”
The Penguins are clearly displeased with their plight. They appeared likely to respond to Robinson’s road matchup triumph of Thursday by putting all their broken eggs back in one basket, rejoining Lemieux and pointless-in-this-series Jagr, probably with Martin Straka.
“We’re just trying to create some offense. We’ve been pretty successful this year together, so hopefully we can do it again,” Lemieux said.
The Devils expect it to happen.
“We were sitting around last night, and that’s what we came up with,” said Holik, who checked Lemieux with Alex Mogilny and Sergei Nemchinov in Game 3. “We might just keep it the way it was.”
Ken Daneyko, who will likely face that threesome with Scott Stevens, marveled that they waited until the end of Game 3, New Jersey’s 3-0 masterpiece.
“When they put them all together, it makes them more dangerous,” Daneyko said.
Penguin coach Ivan Hlinka blamed not being able to break Robinson’s matchup of Holik on Lemieux on the unavailability of thorax-strained Robert Lang in Game 3.
“We have to learn if Lang will be OK. Then it will be different,” Hlinka said.
The Devils want it to be different, too. Different from their previous Game 4s.
Bobby Carpenter will be behind Devil bench again after moving there for the first time in Game 3. Assistant coach Kurt Kleinendorst was an eye-in-the-sky. Carpenter helped with the forwards’ positioning and noticing Penguin tactics.
Jagr said he slept well Thursday. “I had a dream. I scored the game-winner. I couldn’t believe it,” Jagr said.
Series moves to Meadowlands for Game 5 Tuesday night.
Devs are 5-2 on the road, outscoring hosts 22-11 . . . Pens are 3-4 at home, outscored 16-21.
Randy McKay did not skate in practice but said he’d be ready to play this afternoon.
