WITH the Hurricanes pounding, pounding like the headache the Devils must now endure for another summer, Joni Pitkanen finally found a seam to Jussi Jokinen before Eric Staal fired one off the wing with 31.7 seconds left into what Marty Brodeur called a “sweet spot.”
Except for him, it was anything but.
“It stays with you,” the nine-time participant in Game 7s had said about them on Monday. “Nobody has a record of Game 2s. It’s ‘How does he do under the gun?’ ”
In the driveways and on the ponds, every game is Game 7. Brodeur has learned every kid had it right, because the winner of five and the loser to Stephane Matteau and Patrick Roy was reminded again that even when he is old and gray, Game 7 will be in his worst nightmares in addition to his sweetest dreams.
DEVILS SUFFER HELLISH GAME 7 DEFEAT
The Devils, up 3-2 with 1:20 to go, threw it away, 4-3, to Carolina.”It’s shocking,” said Brodeur. “We were in control most of the game, had our chances.
“Against a team that luck follows against us, we let them hang around and the puck bounced on their side again. We had our chances to get the puck out on that shift. We were running around and they found a lane and [Jokinen] made a good shot, it went through my leg and off the far post and went in. [Staal] beat me between my pants and blocker. I was in a good position, he made a better shot. Players with that much speed are going to make some shots. We were trying all series to not let him have that much speed.”
Play 15 years, win three Cups, get to four finals, the all-time winningest regular-season goalie apparently can take whatever responsibility he wants in the end. He wasn’t wrong: Both goals followed at least eight superior Brodeur saves, four of them in a 20-second sequence during a second-period five-on-three.
But Cam Ward, beaten uncharacteristically on an unscreened Brian Rolston shot from the top of the circle that put the Devils ahead, ultimately made one big stop more than Brodeur, sending him down short of the conference final for the fifth consecutive playoffs. Since his last Cup in 2003, four of those losses have come in the first round.
“This was a first-round loss, it’s not like we were playing for the Cup, but we felt we had a great opportunity to be successful with the season we had,” said Brodeur. “We worked hard in this game, guys performed really well, there was nothing to be ashamed of.”
The New York hockey season ended in two Game 7 whimpers, the Rangers going down in Washington harder than expected, the Devils on a last-minute stunner for the second time in the series. New Jersey, with four goals in their last three games, couldn’t score enough to save its season and the Rangers remained offensively inept to the end.
Both teams’ lives were their goaltenders, and ultimately both goaltenders got matched, Henrik Lundqvist by rookie Simeon Varlamov, Brodeur by a Cup winner in Ward.
The Devils had enough to go further, didn’t have so much that anyone can insist they should have. It looked like they could play with fire because they had an all-time extinguisher. But up in smoke they went in the end.