Scott Stevens had tried not to think about it, but it was no use. “Holding the Stanley Cup over your head is a dream every player has,” he had conceded. “I’m not going to hide it. That’s my goal.”
Mission accomplished. The New Jersey Devils’ captain was the first to take a celebratory spin around Brendan Byrne Arena Saturday night, holding aloft the silver chalice that is hockey’s most precious bauble.
The Devils earned it with a 5-2 victory over the Detroit Red Wings, completing a stunning four-game sweep over the team that had entered the finals as a solid favorite.
The Red Wings, humiliated in their loss in Game 3, fought desperately this time, but the Devils, who got a pair of goals each from Neal Broten and Shawn Chambers, broke it open in the final period.
The first Devils’ goal may have come too early and too easily. It was scored by Broten just 68 seconds into the game and was hotly disputed by the Red Wings, who thought Broten had kicked it in with his skate.
But after a lengthy delay for television review, referee Bill McCreary let the goal stand and the sellout crowd cheered as if the Devils had just won the Cup. They should have known better.
It took Detroit less than a minute to tie it on a goal by Sergei Fedorov.
Stevens appeared momentarily hurt after missing a check on Martin Lapointe behind his own net and he gave up the pursuit. Thus freed, Lapointe was able to skate the puck out and deliver it to Fedorov, who two-timed it past Brodeur at 2:03.
The Wings carried the play to the Devils after that and McCreary let them play on, ignoring several obvious calls. He finally found one he couldn’t ignore when Bob Errey hooked Broten from behind as he was skating the puck into the Detroit zone.
But the power play turned out to be anything but beneficial to the Devils. They could muster no offense whatever and finally Fedorov took matters into his own hands, skating around Tommy Albelin and launching a shot that hit the post. Brown slammed the rebound off the end boards and the puck came right back to Paul Coffey, who drove it past Brodeur for a short-handed goal with just :02 left on Errey’s penalty.
The Devils killed off their own first penalty and then got another power play when Keith Primeau was sent off for running into Brodeur.
Vernon made one fine save on Broten, who was one-on-one with the goalie skating down the right wing, but just after the penalty expired New Jersey got the tying goal from Chambers.
Bruce Driver could have shot from the high slot but there were too many Wings in front of him so he dished it to his left to Chambers, who skated to the left face off circle before shooting and beating Vernon high on the glove side.
Brodeur had to weather a dangerous Detroit power play to start the second period. On one play he was down on the ice and the cage was empty, but Bruce Driver cleared the puck from its precarious position.
Then on the final rush of the power play Brodeur stopped a shot by Slava Fetisov and two rebounds by Fedorov to preserve the status quo.
The Devils then started getting quite a bit of heat on Vernon, but couldn’t put the puck on net. The first shot to get through was a screened blast by Scott Niedermayer that Vernon kicked away.
Broten finally broke the deadlock with his second goal of the game and seventh of the playoffs. Claude Lemieux started it when he fought through a check on the boards and sent the puck ahead to Bill Guerin, who stopped on a dime to dish to Niedermayer.
Niedermayer passed to Broten, whose first shot was knocked right back out to him. He jabbed twice more and finally succeeded in lifting the puck just enough to get it over the fallen Vernon.
