2012 Stanley Cup Final: Is It Time for the Los Angeles Kings to Panic?

The goaltending card between Martin Brodeur and Jonathan Quick has all but turned a full 180 degrees from its outlook over the first three games of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final. And it’s looking much more like one would have been inclined to predict prior to the series based solely on the two stoppers’ experiential discrepancies.

New Jersey Devils captain Zach Parise is finally on the board against the Kings after playing four pointless games in the series. Meanwhile, in Saturday’s Game 5, Los Angeles captain Dustin Brown’s only score-sheet entry was a penalty for holding the stick of Henrik Tallinder.

If one ever wants to consult any individual head-to-heads to serve as a microcosm in a team-versus-team breakdown, otherworldly goalies and world-class captains are two good places to go in hockey.

And the likes of Parise and Brodeur, as opposed to Brown and Quick, are personifying a frightful awakening on the part of the Devils, who with Game 5’s 2-1 victory have now whittled a 3-0 series deficit down to a more than manageable 3-2.

Devils fans old enough to remember the turn of the century were likely reminded of a play in Game 4 of the 2001 championship round when they witnessed Parise’s power-play icebreaker in the first period.

Quick, the presumptive Conn Smythe Trophy favorite for the better part of these playoffs, channeled the human element of Patrick Roy, the eventual 2001 Conn Smythe winner, by mishandling the puck behind his net.

Quick recovered a split second too late as Parise smuggled the biscuit into the near post, giving New Jersey its first man-up conversion on 16 tries versus Los Angeles.

In each the first two games of this series, Quick confined the Devils to a single goal. In Games 4 and 5, that distinction belongs to Brodeur, who authorized an equalizer on a long distance, goal scorers’ type of high-flying wrister via Justin Williams at 3:26 of the middle frame.

Like the 2001 version of Roy before him, Brodeur is already a three-time Cup champion. Therefore, given the choice between himself and Quick, the career Devil could likely be deemed more reliable when a goalie makes an inevitable misstep and must move along unfazed.

The 26-year-old Quick does not seem to be quite finished with the learning experiences. He is now 3-4 when trying to close out a playoff series, and is 0-2 when the cup is within smelling distance.

Translation: He may not be quite as resilient as Roy was 11 years ago en route to an eventual victory for the Colorado Avalanche.

And just as his misstep and gift to Parise evoked giddy memories for Devils buffs, Kings fans can only use their short-term memory and recall Quick’s giveaway to another opposing captain in the last round. When the Kings were vying to sweep the Phoenix Coyotes, the young goalie’s turnover amounted to Shane Doan’s icebreaker and game-winner.

This one could have more dire implications, if only for the fact that L.A. has now lost consecutive games and lost on the road for the first time this postseason.

While Parise’s goal did not directly decide the Devils’ triumph, it naturally had a heavy hand in the outcome, namely the third 2-1 final in as many games played at the Prudential Center.

The team scoring first is a pristine 5-0 in a series that has had zero lead changes and the poised New Jersey squad ensured the continuation of that trend less than six minutes after Justin Williams’ equalizer.

One of Brodeur’s most seasoned praetorian guards, Bryce Salvador, built upon his own Game 4 revival to craftily fire home the winner at 9:05 of the middle frame. In the process, he exploited the inexperience of two L.A. rookies who were both with the Manchester Monarchs while their teammates were starting the season overseas.

Initially faking his shot from the point, Salvador lured opposing winger Jordan Nolan out of a position to block his bid. With the open space, he pin-balled a shot off of Kings defenseman Slava Voynov and into the cage.

With that, after going pointless and incurring a minus-one rating in each of the first three games of the finals, Salvador now has a two-game production streak in the works with his goal plus two assists from Game 4 Wednesday. It is his third set of consecutive productive outings in as many playoff rounds.

Meanwhile, with two goals against on 19 shots faced, Quick posted a single-night save percentage of .895, his first sub-.900 success rate of the entire postseason to go with his first losing streak in the same span.

And this all comes when one less mistake could have already given him a hug full of hardware.