Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
CORAL SPRINGS â€" The New Jersey Devils' early intensity caught the Panthers by surprise twice in their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series. Not surprisingly, Florida lost both games.
In Game 1 the Devils raced to a 3-0 lead on their way to a 3-2 victory, while in Game 4 they netted three goals in the first 6:16 before Florida rallied for a 4-3 win.
"In basketball terms, it's almost like they came out in a full-court press," Panthers assistant coach Gord Murphy said.
The Panthers expect more of the same Tuesday night as the Devils face a win-or-go-home situation in Game 6 at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. Florida, leading the series 3-2, hopes to withstand the early surge and go on to win its first post-season series in 16 years.
"Desperation on both sides," Panthers coach Kevin Dineen said Monday after putting his team through an off-day workout at the Saveology.com IcePlex. "You start thinking about what happens the next day: Someone will have great satisfaction and someone has a long summer off."
The series has seen its ebbs and flows, as evidenced by the fact that at some point in all five games, each team has led 3-0. With a boisterous crowd behind them, the Devils can be expected to press for the early advantage.
Panthers defenseman Ed Jovanovski expects the Devils "to come out hard. We have to be on our toes early."
At their best, the Devils are as good as any team in the NFL at creating goals out of the opposition's mistakes.
"They're a very tough team to penetrate through the neutral zone," Jovanovski said. "It can be frustrating when they're swarming like that. If we can give each other close support and come up ice as a unit - when we do that we seem to be successful and break it out like we should."
"Give them credit, because their (aggressiveness) has caught us a little off-guard," Murphy added.
Now, Jovanovski said, it comes down to who plays with more desperation.
"They can't be the only desperate team out there," he said. "We have to be desperate as well. If we can avoid playing another game, we've got to put everything on the line to give ourselves the best chance to do that."
While the Devils won three Cups between 1995-2003, their more recent playoff record is not impressive. They've won only two series in their last six post-season appearances and are 0-4 in their last four elimination games. The last time the Panthers won a series, meanwhile, in 1996, they won Games 6 and 7 over Pittsburgh to reach the Stanley Cup Final.
"I expect nothing less than desperation for a team down by one," Dineen said, "and one that also wants to win the series. It's two clubs that will be colliding very early."
Notes: Dineen said he hoped that both Panthers defensemen Jason Garrison and Keaton Ellerby could be available after missing Game 5 with lower-body injuries. Ellerby practiced, while Garrison made the trip to New Jersey. Left wing Tomas Fleischmann also skipped the workout, but Dineen said he's fine.
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