Things were so dire after the second period Martin Brodeur, arguably the greatest goalie in the history of the game, approached his coach and told him that it might be a good idea if he started the third period on the bench.
Of course, this wasn’t just any third period.
In front of 51,105 outside on Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, with the rival Rangers up three goals and sitting on the adjacent bench, with the snow falling, with the cameras rolling, and with the whole spectacle of the showcase Stadium Series game, Brodeur had had enough.
Coach Pete DeBoer gave the nod to Cory Schneider to play the final 20 minutes in the Devils net, yet at that point Brodeur had coupled with his team’s mistake-ridden defense to make it a formality, all en route to the Rangers’ 7-3 win.
“Tough break, tough game to be part of,” Brodeur said after giving up six goals on 21 shots, prompting the first mid-game goalie change of the Devils season. “You’re looking forward to these kind of events, and when you have a result like that, it’s not that fun.”
Of course, it wasn’t all Brodeur’s fault. After the Devils (22-20-11) got off to a 3-1 lead by late in the first period, everything turned in favor of the Rangers (28-23-3), who started to watch as pucks went in off bodies, skates, and random stick blades. Most came on odd-man rushes, as the Devils were constantly caught making bad reads and allowing the Rangers to counterattack at ease.
“I think what happened was we fell into the trap that this was going to be a 7-6 game and we were going to have to get seven goals to win,” DeBoer said. “We’re not that type of team. We start opening it up and trading chances like that and not a lot of good happens.”
The game seemed to change with just over three minutes left in the first period, as Patrik Elias had scored twice and Travis Zajac added another, all overwhelming Dominic Moore’s lone goal for the Rangers to stake the home-team Devils to a 3-1 lead. Henrik Lundqvist was looking uncharacteristically shaky in his own net — partially due to the fact that he was misled about the game’s starting time following a 39-minute sun-glare delay — and that’s when Marc Staal took a long, bad-angle shot from wide of the left circle.
According to Brodeur, the puck bounced off the heel of defenseman Marek Zidlicky — the first of two goals that would go in off Zidlicky’s body in the midst of a dreadful game — and through Brodeur’s legs to make it 3-2.
“When we play against Marty,” Rangers defenseman Dan Girardi said, “we want to throw everything at the net from every angle.”
It was the first of six unanswered goals the Rangers would score, racking up the most goals scored in an outdoor game since the NHL started the Winter Classic in 2008. The next four all came in the second period, — two from Mats Zuccarello, one from Carl Hagelin and another from Rick Nash, the Rangers just running away with this one.
When Jaromir Jagr was asked if his team ever got a chance to look around and enjoy the surroundings, the wit of the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer was in full force.
“It looked like we all did in the second period,” he said.
The Rangers finished things off when Derek Stepan netted a penalty shot past Schneider midway through the third, but by then, the damage had been done. Now the Rangers ready themselves for another outdoor contest in The Bronx baseball cathedral on Wednesday night against the Islanders, and odds are they won’t be so lucky as to get a netminder so off his game.
“As a goalie, you know, today, the puck didn’t hit me,” Brodeur said. “It was just one of those days. It was unfortunate timing, but it is what it is.”