RALEIGH – They were not only going to be together forever, they were going to make history. Instead, that’s what they are. History.
Patrik Elias, Petr Sykora, Jason Arnott: no longer the A Line; no longer a line. No longer even all teammates.
“When we were at our best no one could stop us; we didn’t even think about the other team stopping us,” said Elias, who, with Sykora sidelined with an ankle injury and Arnott exiled to Dallas, was the only one of the one-time signature trio in the lineup for last night’s Devils’ opener in Carolina.
“We had chemistry. It just clicked for us. Maybe you can’t even explain why, but it’s so important. You can’t buy chemistry. We had that going for us.”
And then?
“I don’t know; maybe we took it for granted. Maybe we didn’t work hard enough for each other this year,” the left winger said. “Maybe it’s a lesson that when you have something good, you have to work to keep it and not take it for granted.
“Am I regretting it? I think about it.”
There is no easy explanation for the dissolution of a unit that appeared on the brink of long-standing greatness. There’s never one reason.
Before being dealt with Randy McKay for Joe Nieuwendyk and Jamie Langenbrunner, Arnott had become a divisive influence in the locker room. Some Devils believed the focus on the A Line detracted from the franchise’s long-standing identity as a defense-first-and-last unit, and didn’t care for it one whit. Then, too, last summer’s free-agent loss of Alexander Mogilny sure didn’t help matters. The Devils, whose 295 goals led the NHL last year, scored 205 this year, fewest of any of the 16 playoff teams.
“Not having the A Line, it’s a shocker; really, it is,” bedrock Martin Brodeur said. “It makes you realize how temporary things can be.
“You can’t win on defense only. Those guys were such a big part of our team, they were a weapon nobody else really could match. For me, I thought of them as an anchor we could rely on. Wherever we went last year, all you heard was, ‘A Line … A Line … A Line.’
“And they produced. But you have to remember, the two years they were so great, we had a decoy in Alex. When he left, we weren’t able to be a one-line team; that wasn’t their fault. There was too much pressure on them to win games on their own. They weren’t able to perform like that every night. They had a tough time.”
Numbers were down all over the league this year, a direct result of a dramatic increase in the tolerance of interference and obstruction tolerated – if not encouraged – by an NHL obsessed with foisting parity upon the paying customers.
“At the beginning of the year they tell you what they’re going to call, but it only lasts five or 10 games,” said Elias. “It’s harder to play with that.”
It was harder all around for Elias, who was the NHL’s first-team All-Star left wing last year with 40 goals, 56 assists, 96 points and a plus-45, but who won’t get a vote this year with his 29 goals, 32 assists, 61 points and plus-four. This sure won’t help him get the numbers he’s seeking once his absurd three-year, $2.15 million contract expires this summer.
“Sometimes the contract was on my mind and sometimes I thought about it too much,” Elias, who turned 26 this past Saturday, said. “If you put pressure on yourself like that, it only makes things worse.
“When that did happen, I had to put a stop to that and just go play.”
Last night, Elias played. Sykora did not. Neither did Arnott.
Eh?