THE battle with the Panthers may eventually turn on what goes on between the Devils’ ears, though with so many important new personalities having been added to the team, the break between old and new at the Meadowlands seems a rather stunning one.
Here again is Claude Lemieux, somehow able to cross over a bridge he burned behind him to ashes five years ago. Here for the first time are freshmen Scott Gomez, Brian Rafalski, Colin White and John Madden. And here, too, are Alexander Mogilny and Vladimir Malakhov, square pegs the Devils are attempting to fit into round holes.
In other words, the famous interchangeable parts have been changed from the team that went out in seven to Pittsburgh last year, from the team that went out in six to Ottawa two years ago, from the team that has won one playoff series in the four years following its 1995 Cup.
And so, despite stumbling home the last two months, despite sliding from first-seed to fourth, this first-round confrontation that opened at home last night should be less about psychiatry and more about hockey. Should be less about laying on the couch and more about standing up at the blue line.
“It’s not about what has or hasn’t happened before,” Scott Stevens, captain, said following yesterday’s morning skate. “It’s not about whether we have or haven’t lived up to our ability the last four years.
“This is about living up to our ability, now. This is about how well we play, now.”
And this, ultimately, is about how well the Devils play against Pavel Bure, surely the most singular NHL goal-scoring threat extant. If Florida poses a threat to the Devils with Bure, they may not have finished ahead of the Rangers without him, let alone have made the playoffs. If the Russian Rocket isn’t the most indispensable player in the NHL, he’s neck-and-neck with Jaromir Jagr.
Bure scored 58 goals in 74 games this year, outdistancing runner-up Owen Nolan by 14. He scored a seven-year league-high 45 goals at even strength. He scored 29 goals in the third periods of games. No wonder opponents resorted to gimmicky approaches such as the Rangers moving Brian Leetch to left wing to shadow Bure, or the Canadiens playing four defensemen against him.
“There’s not too many different things a team can do,” Bure, making his first playoff appearance since 1995, said. “They can shadow you, they can play physically against you to get you off your game, they can slash you.
“It’s not that important. I’ve been having to deal with this for the last 19 years. It won’t be anything new.”
No one in the league plays one-way hockey quite like Bure, who doesn’t even pretend to have interest in coming back to help out in the defensive zone. The over-and-under for last night’s game shouldn’t have been based on goals scored, but on the number of times Bure actually crossed back over the defensive blue line. He’s lethal with the puck, but then, he has to have it in order to do something with it.
“My theory about Bure is that he’s not like Jagr, who comes back to pick up the puck himself and then has the strength to drag three guys with him through the neutral zone,” Larry Robinson, who knows something about defending against goal-scorers, said. “And he’s not like a Cam Neely who’s big and strong and parks himself in the slot and who requires that you have a man on him all the time.
“Bure really isn’t much of a factor when he doesn’t have the puck, and that can play to the other team’s advantage. You know he’s not going to be a factor in the defensive part of the game, you know he’s not going to be in good defensive position.
“His strength is when he has the puck, so you have to take advantage when he doesn’t. You make that pay off in your favor, turn Bure’s strength into his weakness.”
Robinson wasn’t planning on assigning a shadow to Bure, or even dedicating a specific line to check him. Still, Stevens, who has lined up against the opposition’s best forwards for the last seven years, was going to be on with him as often as possible.
“He’s different than anybody else, not only because of his speed, but because with the way he plays, you don’t always have him in front of you when you’re in the offensive zone,” Stevens said. “Either he doesn’t come back or he leaves early; he’s not going to get involved there and caught in traffic, you know that.
“So for me when I’m on against him, I’m probably going to lay off the blue line a little bit. I don’t like to have someone behind me.”
Especially when that someone is Bure. Especially when the Devils, old and new, are trying to put their last four years of history behind them, as well.