Devils top Avalanche 1-0 in shootout
New Jersey Devils forward Ilya Kovalchuk was quick to credit one person when asked to explain his sudden impact in shootouts this season.Surprise!
It was goalie Martin Brodeur.
"I was never really good in shootouts and last year,
I was struggling," Kovalchuk said. "This year, I talked to Marty and he
actually told me a couple of secrets being a goalie. He told me what dangles I
should take to get more options, and it's working for sure."
Kovalchuk
set a single-season NHL record with his seventh shootout winner on Thursday to
back a 28-save performance through regulation and overtime by Brodeur to give
the Devils a 1-0 victory over the Colorado Avalanche at the Prudential Center.
Brodeur,
who notched his second shutout of the season and 118th of his career, was
making his third straight start and sixth in the last seven games. It was the
fourth career shutout for Brodeur against the Avalanche.
Colorado
goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere
stopped 33 shots for his second shutout of the season and the second of his
career against New Jersey. But he was beaten by Kovalchuk and Zach Parise in the tiebreaker, while
Brodeur denied Milan Hejduk and Peter Mueller.
The
Devils, who improved to 11-3 in the tiebreaker, remain in sixth place in the
Eastern Conference standings with 87 points through 71 games. The Avalanche,
who fall to 9-2 in shootouts, are among the top eight in the Western Conference
with 81 points but have just nine games remaining.
"To get a point here in a game like this, against a
good team, is huge for us so we'll take it and move forward now," Avalanche rookie Gabriel
Landeskog told NHL.com.
As
the first shooter, Kovalchuk slammed home his League-leading 10th shootout goal
in 12 chances, before Parise followed with his seventh. Kovalchuk broke Adrian Aucoin's mark of six deciding
goals in the tie-breaker set in 2009-10 with the Phoenix Coyotes.
"I never think before I go … I take what the goalie
gives me and try to beat him,"
Kovalchuk said. "The shootout is an
important thing in hockey now and those 11 extra points make a
difference."
Brodeur
was asked what he said to Kovalchuk that has transformed him into such a
catalyst one-on-one.
"He has a lot of skills; you can't ad-lib all your
life, you have to have a little plan," he
said. "I helped a little in the way
he skates towards the goalie … that was it and he's doing really well."
The
match between Brodeur and Giguere brought back memories of the 2003 Stanley Cup
Finals when Giguere's Anaheim Mighty Ducks took the Devils to a seven-game
Final before New Jersey won its third Stanley Cup. While Brodeur notched three
shutouts in the series, it was Giguere who garnered the Conn Smythe Trophy as
playoff MVP.
"That '03 series went through my mind a little
bit," Brodeur said. "We had good battles in that series and
definitely under different circumstances. But it was a fun game (on Thursday).
We both had to make good saves at critical times."
Both
goalies came up big in the third, but Giguere was called upon to stop 15 shots
as the rigors of two games in as many nights seemed to slowly take its toll on
the Avalanche -- Colorado came to Newark after a 5-4 shootout win at Buffalo on
Wednesday.
"It was the second game of a back-to-back, so we
obviously were a little sluggish coming in," Landeskog said.
"They controlled the game but we worked ourselves back into it and I think
Giguere held the fort … he was great."
The game certainly had a playoff feel to it.
"You could sense their urgency where they are in the
standings … even for us," Parise
said. "They are points we can't
afford to give away and we wouldn't give away. It was back and forth and a
good-skating game."
At
the 7:31 mark, a screened Giguere stopped rookie Adam Henrique off a nifty turnaround backhand from the left hash to
keep the game scoreless. David Clarkson
had a golden opportunity denied with just under two minutes remaining when his
backhander while skating through the crease was swept away by Giguere's stick.
Clarkson
expects every game down the stretch to match Thursday's intensity.
"I think for the rest of the season it will be that
way," he said. "Teams are fighting and we have to keep
climbing and keep winning to push teams, so every game the rest of the season
will be high intensity; that playoff mentality."
Landeskog
had a good opportunity denied by Brodeur 4:45 into the second after taking a
feed in the slot and releasing a snap shot that was turned away.
Less
than five minutes later, chants of "Marty," "Marty" echoed
throughout the arena following a right pad save on Hejduk and another on
ensuing rebound off the stick of Erik
Johnson from the right circle. He turned back Cody McLeod with his blocker a few seconds later on a sequence when
the Devils were caught on the line change.
"Marty made some key saves early in the game and
Giguere stood on his head in the third period," Kovalchuk said. "We
had a couple of good chances and missed the net a couple of times (Giguere)
stopped the puck a lot."
Kovalchuk
wasn't overly concerned with the fact the Devils have now been shut out two
straight games -- they lost 3-0 in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
"I'm not really concerned … we got two points," he said. "Our
next game is against Pittsburgh (on Saturday in Newark). It's a divisional
game, and we'll have to score."
-by
Mike G. Morreale for NHL.com-
Eurolanche.com, Worldwide, eurolanche@eurolanche.com
16/03/2012 - 10:55
