SPIT TAKE: Martin Brodeur and the Devils are confident they won’t blow it as they try to become the second team to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win the Cup. (NHLI via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES — Making one miracle might make two. The Devils’ Preposterous Comeback could actually spawn more fans, especially if they square the Stanley Cup Finals against the Kings tonight and force Game 7 in Newark on Wednesday.
“The story that the team comes back and makes history intrigues people,” Martin Brodeur said. “Maybe we could catch, a little bit, people on our side. It’d be a change. It’d be nice.”
History in the making is riveting stuff.
“I’m sure everyone wants to see something unique happen,” Zach Parise said. “If I was watching a different sport, I would want to see something like that happen.”
The Devils are trying to become the first team since the 1942 Maple Leafs to win the Cup after losing the first three games of the Finals.
“The excitement of what’s going on is pretty special,” Brodeur, a Conn Smythe Trophy candidate, said. “We just want to keep it going. Everybody’s enjoying it, from the guys who aren’t in the lineup to the guys who are contributing.
“I’ll be surprised how many guys on our team know about [1942].”
Some Devils knew all about it, some knew nothing. Brodeur was close, but he thought it was 1945, when the Red Wings lost Game 7 after rallying from an 0-3 hole to the Leafs. No such team since has reached the Game 6 the Devils play tonight.
“I know about it because it’s me. I like to know these kinds of things. They’re fun things to be part of,” Brodeur said. “The situation happens, and you try to live it as much as you can. When there are things in reach like that, if you’re going to be there, might as well do something special.”
The Devils’ comeback has even caught the notice of The King of the Kings, Marcel Dionne, their retired all-time leading scorer with 1,307 points for Los Angeles, and fifth in NHL history with 1,771 points (he also played with Detroit and the Rangers), behind only Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Gordie Howe and Ron Francis.
“It’s do-or-die [tonight] for the Kings,” Dionne told The Post yesterday. “They’d better not go back [to Newark].
“It’s time for [the Kings]. The fans here deserve it. There are still 100 left from 1967.”
Those 100, and the rest of the stalled bandwagon, will be calling out this city’s army of analysts and shrinks, tarot dealers, palm readers, numerologists, astrologers, herbalists, faith healers and crystal consulters.
The Devils are halfway to demoting Marty McSorley’s Blunder to small potatoes. McSorley’s illegal stick penalty in 1993 undid the Kings’ only previous trip to the Finals. But if the Devils capture the Cup, it would take McSorley off that 19-year hook from which he has dangled as the Kings’ worst faceplant.
The Devils already won four straight from a team (the Flyers) in these playoffs. They also finished off the Panthers with two straight overtime victories and stunned the Rangers by winning the final three straight of that six-game series.
In all, the Devils have won their last nine straight (10-1 total) among Games 4-7 of series, while the Kings are 3-4 in those testers.
The Kings have suffered consecutive defeats for the first time in these playoffs, and their perfect (10-0) road playoff record was popped Saturday, leaving the 1995 and 2000 Devils with a share of the record for most road victories in a playoff, along with the 2004 Flames.
Devils coach Pete DeBoer seemed to relish spoiling the Kings’ coronation party in Game 4 — and trying again tonight.
“When your bus has to pull by 10 limos parked on the road for the after-party, that’s definitely a motivation,” DeBoer said.
Although his Devils are the only team that can be eliminated tonight, DeBoer said the pressure is on the Kings.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” DeBoer said. “People expected this to be over two games ago. So the fact that we’re in the spot we’re in, I don’t think there’s any hiding from that pressure.”
No pressure in trying to fend off elimination for the fifth time in these playoffs. The Devils will have to make it six to make history.