I like to pretend I’m 5-7, too.
And so when Brian Gionta, bless his heart, has to look up in order to answer a question of mine, let’s just mark that as Exhibit 1 in proving the case that the winger’s listed height of 5-7 in the Devils guide is, well, quite a stretch.
And yet, on an afternoon where his entire team came up big, no one had more of an impact than Gionta, who went hard to the net to stuff home a rebound to give the Devils a vital early first-period lead against Arturs Irbe in an order-restoring, 4-0 victory at the Meadowlands.
“He’s one of the hardest working players on our team,” said Bobby Holik, who took the drive that Irbe muffed for the pro freshman’s benefit. “As hard as he works, good things are going to happen.”
As hard as Gionta works, he committed a dreadful blunder that contributed to the overtime goal that beat his team in Friday’s Game 2. With the puck on his stick and all the time in the world to clear, Gionta made a soft play off the wall that allowed Marik Malik to keep at the left point. When the Carolina defenseman’s subsequent shot was tipped in by Bates Battaglia, the Devils were down by two games.
“It was really tough; no one wants to make a mistake, let alone one that gives a team a win in the playoffs,” said Gionta, a veteran of 33 regular-season NHL games after having been selected 82nd overall out of BC in 1998. “But you have to get over it and look ahead to a new day.
“I just tried to come out with energy. I knew I had to stay on track. Everybody knows what happened, but professionals have to take that in stride. Things happen in the course of a season or series.”
The Devils happened in Game 3. They carried the physical play in a reversal of roles from the opening two matches. The power play, 1-for-10 coming in, went 3-for-7. Brodeur, a constant, made a gigantic two-on-one save on Jaroslav Svoboda with 4:00 to go in the first while limiting an opponent to two goals or fewer for the 72nd time in 112 career playoff starts.
Joe Nieuwendyk, still not physically fit, went 14-2 in the faceoff circle through two periods and 16-5 overall as the Devils finally neutralized Rod Brind’Amour, 10-11 after going 35-15 at home. Scott Stevens, on a search-and-destroy mission throughout, narrowly missed flashback blue-line takeouts of Sami Kapanen and Craig MacDonald in reminding the ‘Canes to keep their heads up. Christian Berglund, restored to the lineup, added speed and an edge.
Meanwhile, Erik Cole was no factor, Jeff O’Neill a no-show for the seventh time in nine playoff games between the teams the last two seasons. Carolina was awful, mustering just three shots while the Devils had scored four goals on 18 shots by 2:17 of the second.
“We wanted to have Irbe make mistakes, and he did,” Brodeur said. “He didn’t make them before.”
Gionta, whose feet are always moving, appeared for a moment as if he scored two, but the one at 17:04 of the second was washed out when it was correctly ruled he’d knocked it in with his stick above the crossbar.
Holik, who had joked that Gionta is 5-7, “in stilettos,” was asked if there’d been any cracks on the bench about the unlikely nature of the winger being able to reach that high.
“That’s not nice,” the 6-4 center said, looking down at me, way down at me, at 5-7.