The Devils dodged bullets last night. Mike Vernon missed them.
Anything but convincing, the Devils took advantage of what they were given, opening the playoffs with a 4-3 victory over the Panthers at the Meadowlands.
Prospering more on Vernon’s follies than their own superiority, the Devils also survived a scare when No. 1 center Jason Arnott insisted he will play Sunday after X-rays proved negative on his sprained right wrist.
Outscored 3-1 after the first 15:28, the Devils still took the lead in their quest to win a playoff round for the first time since 1997.
“In the playoffs, you take any win you can get,” Bobby Holik said. “We took what we got, and we got three goals early.”
Vernon, doing a frequent backstroke, allowed three stoppable goals, while Martin Brodeur yielded only one clinker in what was hardly a battle of goaltenders.
“We didn’t have enough guys pulling on the rope and we need all 20 guys,” Vernon said.
Vernon gave up two goals on New Jersey’s first four shots, and Florida never fully recovered.
“Early on, he was a little [shaky],” Brodeur said.
Devil coach Larry Robinson gave the Panthers a surprise by putting Sergei Brylin on Pavel Bure, and the NHL’s leading goal-scorer was limited to 3:27 of ice time in the first period, and went minus-2 on the night. Bure had one assist while logging a total of 18:57, stopped by Scott Stevens and Brian Rafalski.
While Bure was largely languishing on the bench, Vernon was handing the Devils the game they barely kept.
The 37-year-old Vernon, a two-time Cup winner and 1997 Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP, allowed Stevens to open the scoring 1:38 into the series. Stevens scored his 20th career playoff goal with a routine faceoff slap from the top of the left circle, with Vernon down early as the puck sailed over his glove.
Petr Sykora made it 2-0 at 4:02 on New Jersey’s fourth shot of the game. Coming from behind the net, Sykora skated to the left flat and slid a simple backhand under Vernon. Brylin, matched against Bure as the left wing for Bobby Holik and later Scott Gomez, made it 3-0 at 15:28, set up by Randy McKay in the left circle to beat Vernon’s glove.
The Panthers began coming back by scoring on an innocent 2-on-2, which turned into something serious when Vladimir Malakhov failed to handle Rob Niedermayer, who simply tapped in Scott Mellanby’s feed at 16:55.
Brodeur then gave up the worst goal of the period to Peter Worrell with 16.5 seconds left in the first. Worrell had just emerged from the penalty box for slugging John Madden when he beat Brodeur’s glove from 50 feet with a wide-open shot.
“A team doesn’t come back like that easily,” Brodeur said. “The second one, you don’t let happen. The first was a routine play that went right through everybody.”
Vernon looked awful again as Scott Gomez scored his first career playoff goal, a slap from the left circle through traffic that found Vernon down early at 7:21 of the second.
Florida closed within one again when Mike Sillinger rebounded Lance Pitlick’s right point shot at 13:50 of the second. But that was all the Panthers could manage, as Stevens and Rafalski showed Bure what he’d have to beat the rest of the way.
Still, the Devils were not celebrating. They won the opener in two of their three previous series, and lost each. They know that Sunday they must avoid the home split, which has occurred in each of those three series losses.
“You don’t answer any questions,” Holik said, “until you win four games in a series.”
They didn’t answer many last night.
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More than 4,000 seats went unsold … Scott Niedermayer returns from his 10-game suspension in Game 2 Sunday … Devils are 5-4 in last nine home playoff games … Panthers hadn’t been to playoffs since 1997, losing in five in the first round after going to the finals in 1996 … Devils were 6-12 in previous three series, scoring only 35 goals … Ken Daneyko continued his string of playing all 109 playoff games in New Jersey history … Jacques Lemaire was in attendance … Anthem singer was a no-show and an organ rendition opened the playoffs.