Almost six years, that’s how long it had been since Anze Kopitar beat Martin Brodeur and the Devils in a shootout by going to his backhand in Los Angeles on Nov. 27, 2006.
Almost six years, that’s the flashback that streamed across Kopitar’s memory bank as he raced in on net on that rarest of plays in the playoffs and rarer still in the Stanley Cup finals — a breakaway in overtime.
And that as well is what Brodeur processed in the split seconds he had as the Kings’ center burst down the middle across the blue line after taking a feed from Justin Williams and nothing but net in front of him with Bryce Salvador and Dainius Zubrus in frantic pursuit.
“I thought he was going to go to his backhand, but he had so much time,” Brodeur would say. “So I made a move that way and he took advantage of it.”
He took advantage of it, Kopitar most certainly did, feigning a move to his backhand before sweeping to his left and lifting a forehand up and over the diving Brodeur’s right leg at 8:13 to give the Kings a 2-1 victory and thus a 1-0 jump-start in the finals that continues at the Rock on Saturday.
“I wish I had every goal back,” said Brodeur, who had made an exceptional stacked pad save on Drew Doughty with 7:30 remaining in regulation that kept the Devils in it. “If I knew what he was thinking, it would be a lot easier.”
But Brodeur probably did know what Kopitar was thinking. He was thinking about Nov. 27, 2006, less than two months into Claude Julien’s aborted tenure behind the Devils’ bench.
“It goes back a few years,” said Kopitar, the Kings’ outstanding talent who was bottled up most of the night after a strong start. “There was a shootout in LA when I went backhand on him and I guess that’s why he thought I was going to do it again, so I mixed it up.”
Kopitar mixed it up after the Devils were mixed up in attempting to keep the puck in the Kings’ zone nearly halfway through the overtime period New Jersey had dictated; just the way New Jersey had dictated much of the third period after a halting first 40 minutes.
The Devils had the puck in the zone, and then they didn’t. Marek Zidlicky has been an integral part of New Jersey’s march to the finals after being acquired from Minnesota on Feb. 24, fell down at the line as the puck was chipped out by Doughty to Williams, who got to it first and sent a backhand in the middle to Kopitar.
“I thought I’d be able to get over and get the puck first, but he got to the puck first,” Salvador said. “Maybe if I had stayed back a little bit more . . .
“But that’s what happened.”
That’s what happened after the Devils failed to mount much of a forecheck for most of the night. That’s what happened after David Clarkson couldn’t hold on to a Patrik Elias cross-ice feed with an open side of the net yawning at 6:45 of overtime.
That’s what happened after Ilya Kovalchuk — who appeared to be no more 60 percent of himself in playing through lower-back issues that have limited the winger since the first round — couldn’t get a shot through on Jonathan Quick from the trigger position at 5:45 of overtime after Adam Henrique won a left wing draw from Colin Fraser.
That’s what happened before Kopitar came in alone on Brodeur, before an early-season game from 2006-07 streamed across the King center’s memory bank, before he kept the puck on his forehand, before he gave Los Angeles a 1-0 lead in the Stanley Cup final in that rarest of all plays — an overtime breakaway.
larry.brooks@nypost.com