The Devils now try to make the elephant irrelevant.
Dumbo flies on the wings of the Rangers’ five victories over New Jersey this season, and disappears if the Devils triumph tomorrow in Newark.
The Devils lead the Eastern Conference and enjoy a seven-point edge on the Rangers, who face the Penguins tonight. But when New Jersey plays host to the Blueshirts tomorrow, the Devils will still be trying to snap their biggest hoodoo this season, against their biggest rivals.
“We can’t change what’s happened, but we have more points than they do,” Martin Brodeur chirped. “It’s not irrelevant when we play them. It’s a season within a season, and while we can’t win it now, it’s an important matchup.”
They’ve met five times, and the Devils have only managed charity points in a shootout loss, and another in overtime. That’s 0-3-2 from their point of view, 5-0 for Rangers.
“We want to beat them, no question,” John Madden said. “It isn’t on the front burner of importance, but it’s not on the back burner, either.”
“If we’d beaten them just two out of five times, the difference in the standings would have been huge, for both of us,” Jamie Langenbrunner said. “Mentally, or from a psyche standpoint, I don’t think it matters. We’re not thinking that we can’t beat them. Just like if we beat a team five or six times, we don’t think it will be an automatic victory.”
The Devils were also winless in five this season against the Islanders before beating them Feb. 23. Montreal (1-3), the Rangers and Islanders (1-4-1) are the only Eastern teams who will win the season series against New Jersey this year.
The Rangers rankle most.
“We don’t like that situation. We’d still like to do well against those guys,” Jay Pandolfo said. “It’s not irrelevant, but we can’t worry about the fact that we haven’t beaten them yet.”
If they can’t worry about it, their fans will for them.