Stanley Cup Finals 2012: 4 Plays That Have Put the NJ Devils in a 3-0 Hole

The New Jersey Devils are 0-for-12 in 19 minutes and 53 seconds of power-play time through the first three games of the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals. Five of their top six players in playoff points, including all of the top three, are pointless against the Los Angeles Kings, as are six other skaters.

Even with the 4-0 result Monday night that gave the Kings a commanding 3-0 advantage in the series, this matchup has been more competitive than meets the eye. Goaltender Martin Brodeur has generally recompensed his own mistakes and those of his teammates to at least keep the Devils within one strike of a lead.

The only real implosion to date was a bang-bang succession of Los Angeles power-play goals in Monday’s third period. The first two special teams’ strikes for either team this series occurred in the most recent period they have played, occurred two minutes and 32 seconds apart and doubled up a 2-0 deficit.

But the preceding 40-plus minutes presented abundant opportunities for the Devils to alter the complexion of the series. Ditto virtually every second of action in back-to-back 2-1 overtime losses back home at the Prudential Center.

The four most jutting drawbacks for the Devils en route to a daunting deficit are as follows. Had each of these gone New Jersey’s way, this series would most certainly be 2-1, probably in the Devils' favor.

Mark Fayne’s Miss

With Game 1 deadlocked at a goal apiece near the halfway mark of the third period, sophomore defenseman Mark Fayne joined an odd-man onslaught with fourth-liners Steve Bernier and Ryan Carter.

Unattended by any Los Angeles backcheckers and with goaltender Jonathan Quick leaving a vacant slab of the net before him, Fayne serendipitously converged with Carter’s rebound. And had he settled the puck on his blade before releasing his shot, he easily could have spooned the go-ahead strike over Quick and a diving Alec Martinez.

Instead, Fayne one-timed the rolling disc wide of the cage. From there, the Kings took five unanswered shots at the other end while the Devils did not test Quick again until the final minute of regulation.

The Devils managed two more shots in overtime before Anze Kopitar won it for Los Angeles at 8:13.

Whose Power Play?

Game 2 was less than three minutes old when Ryan Carter drew a cross-checking penalty on Kings defenseman Matt Greene. The chance was ripe for the Devils to set a certifiable tone in response to the sudden-death setback three nights prior.

But of the two shots to be attempted over Greene’s sentence, both were off Kings twigs and tested Brodeur, who brought one of those shorthanded attempts on himself by giving the puck away to Mike Richards.

Only 2:55 after Greene’s jailbreak, Drew Doughty stashed a highlight-reel, single-handed end-to-end rush for a 1-0 Los Angeles lead. What followed was sequentially reminiscent of Game 1 with the host Devils scraping out an equalizer, only to blink in the ensuing overtime.

Two Men Up, Three Games Down

New Jersey’s nine minutes and one second of unanswered power-play action in Game 3 began with a five-on-three segment brought on by Jeff Carter’s double-minor high-stick on Adam Henrique.

But the 59 seconds of five-on-three could evoke nothing but one Zach Parise bid stopped by Quick and three off-target attempts by Ilya Kovalchuk. And with Carter still in the bin, the Devils were forced to sacrifice the full value of a power play when Marek Zidlicky went off for tripping a fresh-out-the-box Richards.

This was all in the final phases of a scoreless first period, when a goal would have granted the Devils their first lead of the series. Instead, the draw held up until Martinez drew first blood for the Kings at 5:40 of the second period, the eventual decider in a 4-0 outcome.

No Retort Where It Really Matters

For the second time in as many games Monday night, veteran forward Dainius Zubrus drew an opposing penalty less than a minute after his Devils fell behind, sending Kopitar off for holding.

But unlike in Game 2, where Patrik Elias and Zubrus each landed a power-play shot on Quick and the team eventually found an equalizer to at least force overtime, there was virtually no action on L.A. property with Kopitar in the bin.

Nor was there any equalizer forthcoming at any point afterward. This time, less than 10 minutes after his friends threw one shorthanded shot on net and one missed bid, none other than Kopitar spawned L.A.’s first multi-goal lead of the series before intermission.