You’d like the rate of progression to be linear, the way it was for the Devils when they won their first Stanley Cup in 1995, a year after their excruciating seven-game loss to the Rangers in the conference finals.

That is understandable.

You’d like to skip the heartbreak associated with the more likely route to hoisting the chalice — a succession of false starts, steps forward followed immediately by a couple of more steps back.

You’d like to speed the process.