Strategy is crucial, execution imperative, but by now, those factors are givens, as even as the series.
Passion overrides all in Game 7, life at its most vital, electric and intense.
“I’ll have major butterflies. My heart’s going to be in mythroat when I hit the ice, and I LOVE it,” little kid Ken Daneyko said yesterday. “This is what it’s all about.”
It is that emotion that ran through the Devils like a live wire yesterday, one day after Jaromir Jagr left them in a jabbering heap, one day before they must beat him and the Penguins, or become certified playoff flops.
The Devils believe they’ll win Game 7 against the Penguins tonight at the Meadowlands. They believe they must believe, with no doubt about it.
“The mind is a powerful thing,” Bobby Holik said. “If you have any doubts, they’re going to slow you down a split second. You have to think ‘We’re playing, and we’re going to win.'”
Linemate Randy McKay, one of the spirits of this team, has his game face on, only it isn’t a masquerade. It’s real.
“I’m confident, but I’m nervous,” McKay said. “Being nervous has always brought out the best in me. Any time I’m nervous, worried or scared, I get that little adrenaline push. I do believe, but I’m worried, or nervous. If we all feel that way, we’ll play with reckless abandon, and we’ll be in good shape.”
They know what’s at stake. A loss tonight would mean a third straight playoff failure as Eastern Conference regular season champs. They have won one se-“It’s getting frustrating. It’s been a long time, too long, especially when we’ve had the seasons we’ve had, 100-point seasons for umpteen years. We have to have more to show for it,” captain Scott Stevens said.
They were 132 seconds from advancing Sunday when Jagr scored to force overtime, then scored to force Game 7. It could have been a crushing blow. The Devils insist it wasn’t.
“If we play our best and they play their best, we win,” Daneyko proclaimed. “I wish I had those [guarantee] capabilities. I have the heart to say it. I don’t have the capabilities.”
Unlike the Penguins, who have the superstar in Jagr, the Devils will be relying on the franchise motto, Team. They will also be hoping that someone finds a hero in himself.
“We need everyone to be thinking they can be the difference,” Stevens said. “You can’t be looking at someone else to do it. We have to see each guy doing what he can do, to be the guy that wins the game. We need 20 guys doing that.”
Daneyko went a bit further.
“I have to play the strongest game on defense I have ever played,” said the 15-year vet of 992 regular season and 107 playoff games. “Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, the same. Petr Sykora, Bobby Holik up front. If we get that from all of us, I think we’re going to be the victors.”
That is the Devil way, the team way. It hasn’t been good enough in the playoffs the past two years. It had better be tonight, or they’d better change their ways.
*
Should Devils advance, they’d likely play Friday and Sunday at home against Buffalo … Devils are 2-1 at home in this series, each team scoring eight goals … Devils have won all three night games in this round … Devils have blown leads in the third period three times in this series … Martin Brodeur will be making his 50th career playoff start.
*
A pall was cast on the excitement of Game 7 for Penguin coach Kevin Constantine. He is mourning the death of Carolina defenseman Steve Chiasson in an auto crash.
“My wife is crushed right now. I can’t even think about him not being around,” said Constantine, who worked six months with Chiasson as an assistant coach in Calgary in 1996-97. Their wives became especially close.