Patrik Elias and Scott Gomez scored second-period goals set up by the seldom-used Ukrainian defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky on Thursday as the New Jersey Devils seized a 2-0 finals lead with a 3-0 victory over the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.
Martin Brodeur tied Dominik Hasek's 2002 record of six shutouts in a playoff year with his second in succession and, just as in a 3-0 victory in Game 1, was barely challenged. The Ducks had only 16 shots, including just two in the Devils' decisive second period, and have only 32 in two games.
PHOTO: AP
Brodeur is the first goalie to start the finals with consecutive shutouts since Toronto's Frank McCool had three straight against Detroit in 1945, a series the Maple Leafs eventually needed seven games to win.
"What's important is we're winning," Brodeur said. "You've got to be excited about starting the series like this."
Especially considering Anaheim's Jean-Sebastien Giguere was the hot goalie going into the finals and was considered the favorite for the Conn Smythe Trophy. Apparently, Brodeur took that as a personal challenge.
"You want to be the best out there," Brodeur said. "Jean-Sebastien really proved that he belonged here and he's playing so far really well. We're getting really good goals on him. But definitely it's really an incentive to beat the best goalie that's playing right now."
Remarkably, the key to the Devils' victory, just as in Game 1, were players obtained from Anaheim in a trade for Petr Sykora last summer. Jeff Friesen had two goals in Game 1 and another in Game 2, and Tverdovsky's playmaking turned Game 2 New Jersey's way.
The Devils, suffocating the Ducks with a trapping defense that gives up shots as grudgingly as some teams give up goals, go to Anaheim for Game 3 today with a lead that has almost guaranteed the Cup in the past. New Jersey is going for its third Cup since 1995.
Of the 28 teams to sweep Games 1 and 2 at home in the finals, only one -- the Chicago Blackhawks, against Montreal in 1971 -- has not won hockey's biggest prize.
"It's definitely easier to go all the way to California [with a two-game lead]," Brodeur said. "I think we discouraged them a lot by playing solid defense."
Anaheim's problem right now isn't just winning, but scoring. The Ducks knocked off the rust that was evident in Game 1 following a 10-day layoff and were visibly faster and more physical in Game 2. The trouble was, that didn't translate into good scoring chances.
Again, the Ducks' biggest threats -- Paul Kariya, Sykora, Adam Oates -- were practically invisible. Kariya had no shots and has only one in two games.
"It looks to me like they're doing to us what we did to two teams before us," Ducks coach Mike Babcock said. "They've got everybody jumping, no matter what line or what matchup, and they're a hungry, hungry team."
Babcock also said the Mighty Ducks "had no emotion again," and he might make changes for Game 3.
Tverdovsky, so deep in coach Pat Burns' doghouse earlier in the playoffs that he was scratched for eight of the last nine games before the finals, created both Devils goals in the second period simply by throwing the puck on the net from the right point.
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