NHL Playoffs 2012: Martin Brodeur Deserves Credit for New Jersey Devils Victory

It was a textbook turning point in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals when, 17 seconds into the third period, Marian Gaborik pounced on Martin Brodeur’s giveaway and slipped home an equalizer.

The trouble for Gaborik’s New York Rangers, who at one point had a 3-0 deficit glowering at them, was that Brodeur is old enough and experienced enough to decide if a gaffe like that is, in fact, a turning point. That literally is an exclusive privilege that comes with a resume dense with displays of resiliency and triumphs over adversity.

In defiance of all logic, Brodeur held the fort for the balance of regulation. He stopped each of the remaining seven shots he faced (a conventional Brodeur-sized workload) and was rewarded when Ryan Carter renewed New Jersey’s lead.

Captain Zach Parise subsequently spooned home an empty-netter to finalize a 5-3 victory at Madison Square Garden, granting the Devils their first lead of the series and a chance to clinch the conference on Friday.

By all accounts, none of the proceedings in the final 19:43 of Wednesday night’s action should have happened. As it was, the Rangers entered the closing frame with a fresh sheet of ice and fresh momentum, having out-shot New Jersey, 11-5, and outscored them, 1-0, in the middle frame.

And one thing any hockey enthusiast will learn in due time is that a first-minute goal in any period is typically the fraternal twin of a last-minute strike. More often than not, it kills the surrendering party.

Another nugget of wisdom that comes naturally with experience following this sport is how brittle an ostensibly insurmountable 3-0 lead really is.

This author can recall living through at least six cases of a 3-0 lead for one team morphing into a 4-3 victory for the other team. They have varied from a house-league roller hockey game he played into one AHL, one ECHL and three NCAA games he attended.

One of them even had current Devils defenseman Mark Fayne and the Providence College Friars building up then tumbling down at the hands of Rangers rookie Chris Kreider and the Boston College Eagles.

In Game 5, the way the Rangers finished erasing the 3-0 deficit and rewarded what may have been their most valiant push in the series should have presaged a go-ahead goal accompanied by a buzzing noise and uproarious jubilation. It should have set the stage for an ultimate test of the Devils’ psychological strength going back home for Game 6.

That pattern has shown up enough times already in the 2012 NHL playoffs. Just a few weeks ago, Brodeur himself watched from the other end as his Philadelphia Flyers counterpart Ilya Bryzgalov effectively finalized his team’s downfall with an egregious giveaway.

This past Sunday, Los Angeles Kings stopper Jonathan Quick delayed his team’s abolition of the Phoenix Coyotes when they pounced on his turnover for the icebreaker and clincher in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals.

But neither Brodeur, his comparatively unripe teammates or their first-year coach Peter DeBoer were going to be fatally deflated. Not even when the 40-year-old living legend froze around the trapezoid some say he brought on into the post-lockout NHL, left the puck vulnerable and awkwardly helped Gaborik’s shot trickle home.

The veteran of 198 Stanley Cup playoff games—winner of 110 of those—and owner of three rings may have given away the puck and the lead, but he was not going to give away his poise.

And as Brodeur went, so went the Devils.

DeBoer could have called his timeout as soon as Gaborik hit the net, or when his team iced the puck less than two minutes later, or even at some point in the second period. Instead, he patiently held on to it until there was 10:17 to spare in regulation.

In the six minutes of action that followed, the titanic, toe-to-toe tangle had only one shot reaching either goaltender. It was a 34-foot wrister by New York’s Brandon Dubinsky.

The Devils finally crossed the moat into Henrik Lundqvist’s estate when an unlikely physical force, Ilya Kovalchuk, blanketed backchecker Michael Del Zetto in the corner. Stephen Gionta extracted the puck and watched an unsupervised Carter convert his cross-ice feed with 4:24 remaining.

The Rangers responded with three sparsely distributed, unanswered stabs at Brodeur, but nothing doing. New Jersey’s backstopping backbone would not let them waste their second wind.

And now, 18 years after his first deep playoff run, Brodeur’s rivals are all but left to wonder who is going to be the latter-day Mark Messier in Game 6.