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Series at a Glance Stars, meet the Devils; Devils, meet the Stars
Posted: Thursday June 01, 2000 05:19 PM
By David Vecsey, CNNSI.com I'll let you in on a little secret: Virtually every hockey writer in North America was rooting for a Colorado-New Jersey Stanley Cup final. It practically wrote itself. Roy vs. Brodeur. Lemieux returns to Colorado. The Devils used to be based in Denver. Ray Bourque guns for his first championship. But Dallas vs. New Jersey? It's hard to even come up with any cultural or sociological parallels between the two places. They've never made any blockbuster trades with each other, they've never engaged in a bench-clearing brawl. What can governors Christine Whitman and George W. Bush even wager? My mosquito netting against your gun rack? The Lone Star State versus The Garden State? Gotta dig deep to pull something out of that. The Vince Lombardi Rest Stop vs. The Book Depository? You's vs. Y'all? "You from Jersey? I'm from Jersey!" vs. "Howdy, pardner!" J.R. Ewing vs. Tony Soprano? Coming up with an angle to this series will be a bigger stretch than Mel Gibson at the end of "Braveheart." There is one saving grace. Superb hockey. You will not find two better organizations top to bottom in the NHL, from shrewd GMs in the press box to hall-of-fame goalies to intelligent coaches. The quality of hockey in this series should be of the finest ilk ... and that always makes a sportswriter's job easier. Whew ... for a minute, I thought we were going to have to work a little bit.
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After starting the season in a contract dispute, Patrik Elias has blossomed into a bona fide star for New Jersey. He holds or shares the team lead in the postseason for goals (7), assists (8), points (15), power-play goals (2), and short-handed goals (1). He scored both goals in the 2-1 Game 7 victory over Philly in the East final.
You wouldn't know it by his stats, but Mike Modano is struggling to find the back of the net. Sure, his 19 points are only one off the team lead and 10 more than the next highest player, but until his soft floater handcuffed Patrick Roy in Game 7, Modano had gone nearly 294 minutes without a goal and had but five shots on goal over the last five games against Colorado.
