Better players make coaches better. So far, the Rangers have given Tom Renney the first-round edge over Brent Sutter.
With the MegaMillions horses Renney has, his team has to produce, and it is doing just that now, coming home to the Garden for Game 3 tonight leading the Devils 2-0 in their first-round series.
His Rangers are threatening to spoil Sutter’s first season of what sources have told The Post is a five-year deal. One source has pegged the total contract at $15 million.
It’s not over, but it’s been 40 years since the Rangers last blew a 2-0 series lead, when the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. prompted a postponement of Game 2 against Chicago, giving Blackhawks time to heal. The Rangers won Game 2 at the Garden and were set to blow the Hawks away on Rod Gilbert’s team record pair six seconds apart. Then the Hawks changed goalies, won that game and the next three.
Only 16 teams, including the 1994 Devils (over Boston) and 1996 Rangers (over Montreal) have survived losing the first two games at home. Carolina did it to Montreal last, in its 2006 Cup run. A total of 21 more teams have overcome losing the first two on the road, among the 280 anywhere 0-2 deficits.
The Devils are not fooling themselves that there is any cushion left. The 1942 Leafs and 1975 Islanders survived 0-3.
“The 0-3 thing is all fun and games, a chance to make history, but the odds are it’s not going to happen. We have one shot to get back in this series and we can’t miss it. This is the one we have to win,” Martin Brodeur said yesterday.
The Devils have never been swept, and such an ouster would negate the solid job Sutter did in the regular season, pushing, pulling and cajoling an ordinary, star-free squadron from a 3-5-1, opening-season road trip to the top of the Eastern Conference – until reality struck after the trade deadline. But the regular season is already immaterial, even though it’s only a week gone.
New Jersey’s fourth-seed in the East, and second-place Atlantic finish with 99 points, was a major accomplishment for Sutter, his Devils without Scott Gomez and Brian Rafalski topping the Rangers with Gomez and Chris Drury.
But in the NHL, it’s the playoffs that count, and Sutter may have had to burn out his undermanned Devils with his high-intensity, squeeze-every-drop-from-the-talent-available style, just to qualify.
The burnout theory is supported by the Devils’ late-season, third-period disappearances. They have been outscored 21-3 in their last 12 thirds, including 5-1 in the two Ranger victories in Newark in this series.
Even when Sutter tries to change things strategically, slow down Galloping Gomez, Renney’s greater wealth of forward talent has made the difference.
In the first game of this series, Sutter used two checking lines, Zubrus facing Jaromir Jagr, and John Madden against Benedict Gomez. The Rage of Anchorage made the neutral zone his own drag strip, bursting through New Jersey’s defense and piling up three primary assists.
Sutter reacted, often matching his lone scoring line, centered by Patrik Elias, against Gomez. That strategy diminished Gomez’s romps, but it also inhibited the Devils’ lone hope for regular scoring. The Devils scored their too-familiar one or less in regulation for the second straight game, and 33rd time in 84 games, losing 2-1 Friday in Newark.
His first two options failed, and now, he won’t have the home-ice matchup. Sutter doesn’t have many more options. But these are the Devils, still, some with Hearts of Champions yet. Their coach, too. Expecting them to vanish meekly is delusional.
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Sutter hinted Vitaly Vishnevski might move into Devils lineup, perhaps at the expense of Andy Greene. . . . Zach Parise practiced after having two root canals on front top teeth broken by a crosscheck from Christian Backman. . . . The Devils are 1-for-9 on power play, Rangers 0-for-6. Rangers have scored a short-hander.