The dream of dynasty demands another miracle now. The Devils’ need-two task without Scott Niedermayer is no less daunting than last year’s three-victory comeback against the Flyers.
The stake is just bigger, as large as it gets for Stanley Cup champions, shocked to suddenly find themselves one loss from being dethroned.
They have absorbed successive haymakers, losing Niedermayer to Tie Domi’s elbow in losing Game 4, then being stunned by Tomas Kaberle’s 3-2 winner with 29.4 seconds left in Game 5 last night, pushing their reign to the edge of extinction.
It will be asking much for this team, trailing this series 3-2, to reform enough to survive as champions.
“We’ve been up and down like a roller-coaster. Maybe now that we have no place to go, we’ll finally realize it’s all about winning,” Ken Daneyko said.
Larry Robinson, who blamed himself on the game-winner, is waiting for that to happen.
“Now we get a good gut check to see exactly where we lie,” Robinson said. “We’ve got two [OT] wins in this series already and we haven’t played close to perfect. We were behind Philly before, worse than this.”
The Leafs don’t intend to follow Flyer suit. They love where they’re sitting, heading home for Game 6 tomorrow, needing only one victory in two to avenge last year’s ouster by the Devils.
“This,” Mats Sundin said, “is the situation we wanted to be in.”
“You bet,” Leafs coach Pat Quinn agreed.
It has come undone for the Devils, in stages, and Robinson sees it clearly.
“As soon as the playoffs started, we won the first three games, then we lost sight of what discipline is,” Robinson said.
Last night, they had another self-control issue, still angry over the loss of Niedermayer.
“Our problem . . . we talked about keeping our composure. It was a lot of talk and nobody acted until we were down 2-0,” Robinson said. “We’ve been talking about it for a day and a half. I warned them. It’s great to have emotion, but you have to use your head.
The Leafs’ opening goal was exactly what Robinson meant. The Devils tagged with a simultaneous pair of needless minors, Scott Gomez overactive in decking Darcy Tucker and Scott Stevens for giving Shayne Corson an extra shot. On that 5-on-3, the Leafs took the lead, the fourth time in this series they scored first.
As the Leafs compressed the Devil diamond, Bryan McCabe wound up at the top of the left circle, beating Martin Brodeur’s glove cleanly with a bullet 9:29 into play.
After the Devils had only two first-period shots, Toronto took its turn by managing only one in the first half of the second. That one counted, however, as it became Cory Cross’ second goal of the postseason at 4:42. Stevens took down Garry Valk at the boards and Yanic Perreault stepped in to grab the puck. Cross had moved in from the left point for the handoff in the right circle, and he ignored Turner Stevenson’s check to slip the puck past Brodeur’s stick.
The Devils finally beat Curtis Joseph at 12:43 of the second on a disputed goal. As Perreault came out from behind his net, Petr Sykora separated him from the puck with a hook. Patrik Elias slipped the result back to Sykora at the left front to steer past Joseph’s stick.
The Devils tied the score at 16:50, six seconds into a 5-on-3 on Jason Arnott’s second.
Overtime loomed when Kaberle capitalized an instant after Corson, being pushed by Colin White, fell atop Brodeur as the puck went into the net.
Robinson took himself to task for that goal.
“I’m mad at myself because in the last minute, I probably should have called timeout, and made sure I had the right guys on the ice,” Robinson said. Right now, there’s too much blame to go around. The Devils will have to turn in two straight faultless games, or they’ll be ex-champs.