OTTAWA – This, then, is the biggest test these Devils will face. They are playing to become the Stanley Cup favorite.
They have already done more and gone further than so many better teams. This time they actually face one in the Eastern Conference final that opens here tonight against the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Senators.
The Devils did all they should have in the opening two rounds, ousting inferior Boston and Tampa teams in five games each. Now they are being asked to do more and be better than they’ve been since they held a 3-2 lead on Colorado in the 2001 Finals.
It is now familiar for these Devils, who are making their third trip to the semis in four years and have triumphed in each of their last three visits to the penultimate round.
“We’ve been lucky that we’ve put ourselves in this position often, to get this opportunity,” Martin Brodeur said.
“But at some point, it’s going to stop. That’s why we have to take hold of this situation. It might never come back.”
They should feel somewhat fortunate to be back in the hunt for a Finals berth after blowing their chance to repeat as Cup champs in 2001. That loss, and last year’s early exit, should remind the Devils that some teams don’t even make the playoffs every year.
This next, best chance, tests their mettle immediately as they open on the road. They have lost their last two road series, and while the Monsters of the Meadowlands stand 6-0 at home, they are only 2-2 away from New Jersey in these playoffs, a motley 2-6 in their last eight road playoff games.
“We’ve turned the page, but it’s still there somehow,” Brodeur said. “We’re conscious of the fact that we haven’t done really well on the road in the playoffs lately.”
He didn’t mention that the Devils went 0-3 in Kanata in their 1998 first-round loss to the Senators.
Brodeur will have to be a difference in this series against the potent Senators’ attack. The Devils will depend on their league-class defense to limit the chances he faces, but they are unlikely to advance unless slumbering offensive forces awake.
Joe Nieuwendyk, the 1999 Conn Smythe Trophy winner and 1988 Calder Trophy Rookie of the Year, owns 58 career playoff goals, tied for 30th all-time with Guy Lafleur and Boom-Boom Geoffrion. It’s just that only one of those has come in these playoffs, eight games ago, as the Devils open the Eastern Conference finals here in a game switched from this afternoon to tonight to accomodate Canadian TV.
“We’re going to have to put the puck in the net going forward from here – myself, Patrik [Elias] and Gomer [Scott Gomez],” said Nieuwendyk, who is 1-4-5 and minus-3 in 10 games. He had two assists and went minus-4 against Tampa.
Horribly, Nieuwendyk went a team-worst minus-6, scoring one goal and no assists, as the Devils went 1-2-0-1 against the Senators this season, losing the last three.
That must change, or the Devils are unlikely to grab this opportunity that beckons so invitingly.
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After learning that “Hockey Night in Canada” forced today’s game from 3 p.m. back to 7 p.m., Burns said, “We don’t care. We just want to play, at seven or eight, three, four or two. ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ is not just another game.” . . . Devils will have had seven full days without a game.
