NHL

Devils confident they can find ‘life’ in Los Angeles

GLOVE STORY: The Devils’ Alexei Ponikarovsky (right) has his face rubbed by the Kings’ Jarret Stoll in Game 2 of the Stanlet Cup finals Saturday. (Getty Images)

L.A. GORY: Martin Brodeur and the Devils react to Jeff Carter’s overtime goal Saturday that gave the Kings a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final. Game 3 is tonight at Staples Center. (
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LOS ANGELES — The All-Timer, the three Cup-winner, says there’s danger lurking for the high-flying, yet-uncrowned Kings, the danger that the Devils still have champions’ blood in their veins.

Martin Brodeur yesterday turned the topic away from the 1994 Devils’ comeback in the second round on the Bruins, winning four straight after losing the opening pair at home.

Instead of milking that analogy to the same situation these Devils face in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final tonight, Brodeur turned his memory elsewhere.

“I go back to ’95 when we beat Detroit in four. We just didn’t want to give them one sniff of life. We were scared of doing that,” Brodeur said yesterday. “That’s why we swept them. We were so scared of them.

“We knew if we gave them life, we would have been in trouble. We just kept going and going, never looked at anything else, stayed in the present, and we won.”

The implication is clear, that the Devils believe all they need is a sniff to get back in this series, to put a little doubt in the minds of the Kings. One member of their brass was dancing, arms flailing overhead, down the press box hall in Newark in mockery of “No Surrender” after L.A. won 2-1 in overtime Saturday for its 2-0 series lead.

“I don’t know what kind of attitude they have, but I’m sure they don’t want to give us any life,” Brodeur said. “We’re going to have to be ready to play a good game [tonight] and take hold of the series.”

The Devils face daunting history. The Kings weren’t even born the last time a team won the Stanley Cup after losing the first two at home in the finals. That was the 1966 Canadiens, with Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard, Ted Harris, Yvan Cournoyer, J.C. Tremblay, Jacques Laperriere and Gilles Tremblay, coached by Toe Blake, beating Gordie Howe and the Red Wings.

Lose tonight, and the ugly history lesson goes back 70 years, the 1942 Leafs the only team to win the Cup after losing the first three games of the Final.

But the Devils also know they are a lousy 3-5 in the first two games of their four series this year, but a remarkable 8-1 in in Games 4-7. They’d like to get there only down 1-2.

“I really believe we need one game. And I believe we will do that,” Dainius Zubrus told The Post. “We’ve had some tough moments in these playoffs. We were down 2-1 to the Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist was playing so well. And we came home from Florida for Game 6, down 3-2, without room for error.”

Devils coach Pete DeBoer pounded home the message of win one tonight and it’s a new situation, one the Kings haven’t faced yet, taking the first three in each of their first three rounds.

“We feel good. We feel we have to win one game in order to put a different spin on this series,” DeBoer said. “You guys are going to spout out stats that this is an impossible mountain to climb. We heard the same thing when we were down to Florida, 3-2. That stuff’s irrelevant.

“We really believe we can win a game [tonight] and if we do, it’s a different series. We got down to Philly, rattled off four wins in a row, got down 2-1 to the Rangers and rattled off three in a row. We know we can do that. This isn’t an easy task. They’re a very good team, they’ve shown that. But we’re a confident group. There will be no laying down by our group.”DeBoer said scoring is the issue.

“This series is a long way from over,” he said. “We have to find a way to score some more goals. We have two goals in the series, one by [Anton] Volchenkov, one by [Ryan] Carter, that tells the story.”

They want a rewrite.

The Devils haven’t played outside the Eastern time zone since Jan. 14, but had only yesterday’s hurry-up transcontinental travel and practice since they lost the second of their opening pair Saturday. … While the Kings are a record 10-0 on the road, they’re 4-2 at home, while Devils are 6-4 on the road, as they are at home. … The Devils have never been swept.