Posted by Some teams, special teams, when challenged by adversity, find the chemistry to dig down a little deeper and react in a positive, game-winning way. The New Jersey Devils are one of those teams.
Adversity struck early last year.
One month into the new season, on November first, Marty Brodeur went down in his crease to smother a puck and stayed down, obviously in pain. His injury was a mystery. Nothing had happened. I was sitting in the second row, fifteen feet behind him when it happened. There was no collision, no stick jabbed into him, no accidental blow. Turns out Marty had snapped the tendon in his left bicep, the muscle that controls the movement in your wrist, and would be out for four months after the required surgery and rehab. The MRI two days later at the specialist‘s office in New York would show that the tendon was already eighty percent gone and a random thrust of the arm on a routine save was all it took to snap the rest. As Marty described later in a press conference, “it just went ‘POP’, no pain, no stab, just ‘POP’!”
The team and the fans were devastated. In the next couple of games the players looked lost on the ice. With Brian Rolston and Bobby Holik already on IR, the team’s season seemed to hang in the balance. After three losses in four games, an angry Jamie Langenbrunner stood up and was counted. “We are not a one-man team as you guys always write,’ he told the press corps. “We are better than that. This team can win without Marty in nets and we will prove it to you.” The gauntlet was thrown. The challenge to his teammates was clear. It became an us-against-the world situation. The team responded. One teammate in particular.
Scott Clemmensen, who had been signed to play in Lowell when he found himself out of an NHL job, was brought in to back up Kevin Weekes. An off-season gesture by Lou Lamoriello that rewarded Clemmer for the years of sitting backup for Marty was about to pay big dividends. After losing five out of six games, Scott led the Devils to a home-rink (6-5) shootout over the Washington Capitals. In the shootout he stopped Viktor Kozlov, Alex Ovechkin and Boyd Gordon. The fans went crazy. The team celebrated like they had won the Stanley Cup. The monkey was off their back. Scott Clemmensen went on to win twenty-five of the forty games he played that year, with a 2.39 Goals against average and a save pct. of .917. With Brodeur back only in March, the Devils still ended the season with 106 points and won the Atlantic Division.
Last week adversity, again in the form of critical injuries, overshadowed the Devils seven-game on-the-road win streak. With Patrick Elias, Jay Pandolfo and Paul Martin all sitting out with injuries, and coming off a poor performance at home against the Buffalo Sabres the night before, Coach Jacques Lemaire challenged his team as only he can, by starting Devil newcomer Yann Denis in the net in Boston for his first time since his signing last summer. Denis and the team responded with a 2-1 win over the Bruins. The goalie made thirty-one saves. The Devils’ forwards played furious hockey, fore-checking with abandon, back-checking all the way to their own cage. Saturday, with Brodeur back in net, they won again.
Tonight the Devils take on the Washington Caps at home where they are 1-4-0 for the season, a statistic they would like to improve on. Adversity still stalks the team but in the end they believe they will prevail. Don’t they always?
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