The first Stanley Cup champion of the century is also the best Stanley Cup champion crowned in the 2000s, and it is the one that will be celebrated Saturday night in New Jersey.
This was the Devils team that fired its coach, Robbie Ftorek, with eight games remaining in a regular season that would barely make it into the top 10 of franchise history. But this was also the team that under Larry Robinson flexed all of its muscle and all of its talent and all of its depth and all of its unparalleled defense and goaltending to bring the second of three Cups within a nine-year stretch to Exit 16W off the Turnpike.
The Exit of Champions.
Few lines in NHL history have been as dynamic and sympatico as the “A Line” that consisted of Patrik Elias and Petr Sykora on the wings, flanking Jason Arnott. The band made sweet, joyful music and operated as if connected by a sixth sense, three thinking and operating as one. On the rush, operating down low, it didn’t matter. The “A Line” was the unit that set this team apart from both its ancestors and descendants. You couldn’t stop them, not even with a blindside blow to Sykora’s head. The 2000 Devils were not about the trap.
The depth was staggering. There were nights where Robinson would have Alex Mogilny and Claude Lemieux on the fourth line. Sergei Nemchinov, best remembered in these parts for his contributions to the Rangers’ Cup victory in 1994, fit right into the Devils’ philosophy. Scott Gomez was a dynamic rookie, Bobby Holik was never more effective and John Madden was right behind him in his rookie season.
The dynastic Canadiens of the ’70s threw out a Big Three on defense with Robinson, Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe that never be equaled. But the Devils’ six-deep corps in which Scott Stevens paired with Brian Rafalski, Scott Niedermayer with Ken Daneyko and rental acquisition Vlad Malakhov skated with Colin White, is unequaled not only this century, but in league history.
Go ahead.
You try and pick out a better six.
You try and pick out a team that would limit its opponent to a sum of six shots in a game — three in the first period, two in the second and one in the third — the way the Devils did in eliminating the Maple Leafs in Game 6 of the conference semis, 3-0.
This was Stevens — a top-10 all-time NHL defenseman — at the height of his powers. This was the Conn Smythe spring in which No. 4 erased Pavel Bure as a factor in the first round and, well, obliterated Eric Lindros in that unforgettable Game 7 of the conference finals in which Elias scored one of the craftiest goals in franchise history for the 2-1 winner at 17:28 of the third period in Philadelphia.
Trash cans have gotten a bad rap in sports lately, right, with the sign-stealing, cheating scandal in Houston. But the trash can was a featured player in the Devils’ victory over the Flyers, for it was after losing both Games 3 and 4 at the Meadowlands to fall behind in the series, 3-1, that Robinson kicked one over during a locker-room tirade.
That kicked off the greatest playoff run of Martin Brodeur’s career, the goaltender allowing one goal in each of the successive three victories over the Flyers before limiting Dallas to two goals or fewer in five of the six games of the Cup final. Over the final nine games of the playoffs, Brodeur went 7-2 with a .942 save percentage and 1.17 GAA.
The Stars, the party of the other part both then and in Saturday’s match in Newark, were defending champions; tough, deep and talented. They had Mike Modano and Brett Hull, had Joe Nieuwendyk and Jamie Langenbrunner, had the dastardly Derian Hatcher, who escaped without a penalty — cue the more things change joke — for concussing Sykora with an elbow in the first period of Game 6 on the winger’s slap shot follow-through at the blue line. They had Ed Belfour, at the top of his considerable game.
They also had Mike Keane and his lucky red jacket that he apparently forgot to bring to Manhattan with him when he signed as a free agent with the Rangers in the summer of 1997. Keane had an estimable career and won Cups with Montreal, Colorado and Dallas. But he was the first of the mercenaries to come to New York for the money and solely the money. He lasted five months on Broadway.
Up 3-1 in the series with the Cup in the house, the Devils lost a triple-overtime 1-0 Game 5 on a goal by Modano. Back to Dallas, 1-1 into the second overtime in a simply vicious game. When and where, of course, Elias’ no-look, backhand pass from the right corner found Arnott alone in front for the Cup winner.
The Devils, of course, had won in 1995. But they became the first team in a quarter of a century to miss the playoffs as defending champions the following year. In 1997, they were upset by the Wayne Gretzky-Mark Messier Rangers in the second round. In 1998, they finished first in the East and were humiliated by the Senators in a six-game upset. In 1999, they finished first in the East and lost to the Penguins in a seven-game first round in their second straight 1-8 seed defeat.
So the Devils were no sure thing going into the 2000 playoffs. But they were sure everything in that tournament. This was a roll that made them the best of the best. The best Stanley Cup champions of the 21st Century.