Just a ho-hum game ripped from the annals of 1996.
Or so it seemed Sunday night at Prudential Center, where Jaromir Jagr and Martin Brodeur were two of the best players on the ice, joining forces to lead the Devils to a dominating 5-0 win over the Predators.
“It’s the way we like it,” Brodeur said. “Solid game, that’s the bottom line. That’s the way we need to play.”
Both Brodeur and Jagr are 41 years old, products of the first round of the 1990 draft, almost four years before Predators star defenseman Seth Jones was even born. Their careers have taken very different paths, Jagr’s a more circuitous route to this place, where Brodeur has been the franchise bedrock for two decades.
But somehow, in a league that has gotten immeasurably faster and stronger, the two of them still manage to stay relevant. Jagr, for one, didn’t take long to assert himself, scoring the first goal of the game just 1:30 in, a little looping move across the high slot and a cross-grain shot that was so clearly torn from his days in Pittsburgh it was surreal.
“I used to score a lot of goals like that,” Jagr joked. “But the goalies are getting better now.”
What that goal did was give Jagr 1,700 points for his career, just the eighth player in history to reach that mark and the first European to ever do so. When he added an assist on Travis Zajac’s pile-on goal that made it 4-0 midway through the third, he inched one closer to his friend and mentor Mario Lemieux, sitting just above him with 1,723.
“If I was thinking about numbers, I would never have left for Russia,” said Jagr, who spent 2008-2011 playing in the KHL. “Maybe I would have had 1,900. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe not. Maybe I wouldn’t be playing right now. You never know. But to be able to get that number, you have to be able to play with a lot of skill players. That’s what I’ve had throughout my hockey career.”
Brodeur, meanwhile, was notching career shutout No. 123, an all-time list he already sits atop. It was also his second shutout in as many starts, his most recent outing a 3-0 blanking of the Flyers on Thursday.
“To see how well we play defensively, it’s probably how many times I’m going to play the puck,” said Brodeur, who faced just 15 shots, although he thought it was more and the scorer messed up the total. “When you do well on your neutral zone [play], teams have to dump the puck in. And when you have the puck, it’s hard for them to shoot the puck on net.”
It was a fine analysis from one of the game’s smartest minds, but it’s also easier now that his team is back on track. They’ve taken five points in their past three games, 10 points in their past eight, and will take their 5-7-5 record into the Garden on Tuesday against the Rangers.
Although the bounce back from a bad start might not be surprising, who is leading them there might be.
“When I came back from Russia, I wanted to kind of enjoy it, be on a second or third line, enjoy the game, help the other guys,” Jagr said. “But this year, I felt like, let’s try to be the best I can be. You never know.”
The Devils were without Patrik Elias (back, missed five straight), Bryce Salvador (foot), Ryane Clowe (concussion), Stephne Gionta (foot) and Jon Merrill (face).