WE’RE HERE FOR YA, BRO! While Conn Smythe-winner Jonathan Quick (inset) has his moment with the Cup, Martin Brodeur was consoled by his teammates after the Devils’ embarrassing 6-1 loss to the Kings during Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. (Reuters)
WE’RE HERE FOR YA, BRO! While Conn Smythe-winner Jonathan Quick (inset) has his moment with the Cup, Martin Brodeur was consoled by his teammates after the Devils’ embarrassing 6-1 loss to the Kings during Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. (
)
LOS ANGELES — From the hole that has been an escape-proof grave for 70 years, the Devils still held their beaten heads high.
“I’d rather be,” Dainius Zubrus said, “in this locker room than anywhere else.”
The other locker room was all high-fives and champagne as the Kings celebrated their first Stanley Cup last night.
Yet the Cup runnerup Devils proclaimed pride in their team and their season. Zubrus, whose 15-year quest to return to the finals came up Stanley Cupless again, said he preferred the team that dreamed, the one that fought back from missing the playoffs last season, from trailing in every series this spring, that put a scare the 70-year streak without 0-3 finals comebacks.
In the end, that hole claimed the Devils as well last night, after they became the first team in 67 years to reach Game 6 from that deficit. They had no margin for error for a week, and they erred early, late and often in last night’s season-ending 6-1 loss that anointed the Kings as Stanley Cup champs.
The first eighth seed in league history to win the Cup, the Kings made it easy on Conn Smythe Trophy winning goalie Jonathan Quick. They put a decisive end to the Devils’ Miracle in the Making by pouncing for three first-period goals on one major power play, awarded when Devils winger Steve Bernier boarded Rob Scuderi.
Typical on this team of class gentlemen, Bernier stood up and faced the media music.
“I wish I could take that play back, but I can’t,” Bernier said. “I got five minutes and they scored three goals. It’s extremely hard to finish on that note. It’s not fun.”
Asked if he thought the penalty was fair, Bernier responded: “No, not at all.”
Devils coach Pete DeBoer indicated he disagreed strongly with the call. It was surely unintentional, but only the fact that this was a Cup-clinching game mitigated against a major penalty.
In the end, the Devils left themselves no margin against such judgement calls, vulnerable to just such misfortune.
“We found ourselves in a pretty deep hole almost before the finals started,” Zach Parise said. “At the same time, we felt we could get back in this. We can all look at each other and say we give it our best.
“You don’t realize it’s over until you’re in the locker room and you’re not going to play any more,” Parise said.
The Devils failed to join the 1942 Maple Leafs, the only team to win the Cup from that finals deficit.
In the end, the Devils worked a springtime of wonders, but now face a summer of wondering.
The worries are major. Sources insist they have found an investor to keep them from bankruptcy, but although the deal is said to be imminent, that’s been heard before.
Then, they must somehow keep Zach Parise, Bryce Salvador, Martin Brodeur, Ryan Carter and other unrestricted free agents.
Almost certainly, general manager Lou Lamoriello today will forfeit his first-round draft pick, 29th overall as Cup runnerup, the final punishment for “circumventing” the CBA with his initial, voided signing of Ilya Kovalchuk two summers ago.
The Devils finished 13-10 in postseason, but still managed to remain unswept in team history after falling 0-3 to the Kings to open the finals. They forced the series back to Newark by winning Game 4 here, then handed the Kings their only road defeat of the playoffs in Game 5, becoming the first team since 1945 to extend a series beyond five games from their 0-3 hole.
But 1945 is not 1942, so it matters little, except for “Nice Try.” New Jersey lost for the second time in five trips to the Stanley Cup finals, winning in 1995, 2000 and 2003, while falling in seven in 2001.
The Kings’ Cup was the first for the franchise that was part of the 1967-68 expansion. The Maple Leafs have had a longer drought, since their 1967 Cup, the last of the Six-Team League.
Kings coach Darryl Sutter, who replaced Terry Murray midseason, promptly talked repeat.
“The first thing you think about as a coach, these guys are all young enough, they’ve got to try it again,” Sutter said.
Los Angeles became the first eighth-seeded team to win the Cup since play went by conference in 1994. The Kings finished 16-4 in postseason, the Devils 14-10.
Still, only two victories shy of a fourth Cup, the Devils came a long way from missing the playoffs last year for the first time in 14 seasons.