Battle Of Hudson

In a topsy-turvy Eastern Conference, the Devils found themselves in the same position they began the weekend after their hair-raising 3-2 win over the Leafs tonight – five points behind the last wild card spot, only with two fewer games to make up the deficit.  Derek already recapped yesterday’s 2-0 loss to the Rangers, which I thought would both be crushing to the team’s playoff hopes and their collective psyche.  Especially with how little offensive spark they showed until the third period, aside from Jaromir Jagr – who the Rangers really should have quadruple-teamed since he was the only one getting chances.  Still, the Rangers shut us out giving us our ninth shutout of the season.  Ironically Martin Brodeur played one of his best games of the season in defeat, much better than he’s played in many of his victories this season…but it still wasn’t enough.  Though I do agree with Pete DeBoer‘s whining assessment after the game that the NHL doesn’t call nearly enough diving penalties, it was still a bit unseemly for him to be complaining about penalty calls when they couldn’t manage a single goal and were thoroughly outplayed in the game’s first forty minutes.

With four games in six days at the Prudential Center, I’d already sold off my tickets for tonight well before it seemed like we were in a world of hurt after yesterday’s game.  However, Toronto’s recent collapse has provided a glimmer of hope of at least catching them in the ever-changing playoff race.  Despite recent struggles from goalie James Reimer, coach Randy Carlyle stubbornly ran him out there again tonight (akin to how we ran out Johan Hedberg time after time last year despite poor play).  Surprisingly, even our popgun offense was able to make Carlyle pay for his goaltending choice and the Leafs’ usual shoddy defense with three goals in the game’s first twenty-two minutes, including two during the opening moments of the second period.  After being scratched for two games, Damien Brunner scored the game’s opening goal on a simple wrister stick-side, finishing off a two-on-one with Adam Henrique for his eleventh goal of the season at 14:38 of the first.

Early in the second, the Devils threatened to blow the game open when defenseman Jon Merrill sprung Patrik Elias with a beauty of a pass, and Elias’s deke toward the middle to beat Reimer was just as pretty, putting home his seventeenth goal of the season just a minute and eighteen seconds after the period started.  Just thirty-two seconds later Merrill finished a dandy of a shift with a goal of his own, firing a slapper through traffic that squirted through Reimer and over the goalline for a 3-0 lead.  Finally Carlyle replaced the embattled Reimer with journeyman Drew McIntyre.  Predictably, the Devils would not score another goal against the backup’s backup, though to his credit McIntyre responded well and made some spectacular saves.  It would have been nice if we hit the net more though, like Ryane Clowe missing on a one-timer from just a few feet in front during the third period.

Just as predictably, the Devils big lead once again turned into a hairy finish which started when Tyler Bozak tipped in a goal on a Leafs power play at 5:26.  Things could have gotten really disasterous with back-to-back penalties by Andy Greene and Mark Fayne later in the period, giving Toronto a 77-second 5-on-3 without two of our best defensemen available to kill it.  However the undermanned units and goaltender Cory Schnieder were up to the task in a momentum-changing kill that elicited cheers from the 15,000 plus in attendance.  Through most of the third period, the Devils actually played well against a high-flying Leafs team desperately trying to cut into the deficit.  However, we couldn’t quite put up the fourth goal which would have really made the game safe and finally the game reached its climactic moments when the Leafs pulled the goalie for an extra skater with just over two minutes left.

Still up two, it should have been an easy finale but then Marek Zidlicky for reasons known only to him decides to make a risky play trying to intercept a Leafs pass, and when he missed he left Phil Kessel of all people alone on a partial breakaway.  Of course Kessel beat Schnieder with a sick move in front and put the Devils on high alert again with just ninety-one seconds left.  Most of the next seventy seconds, the Leafs spent in our zone as blood pressures rose all over the state and inside the arena.  However a couple of big saves by Schnieder and a diving clear by Elias with just over twenty seconds left helped make sure tonight wasn’t going to be one of those blown leads of infamy.

So now with the Devils beating the Leafs and the Red Wings’ OT loss to the Wild, we’re back to five points out of a spot.  Yes, I know I said a loss to the Rangers would effectively kill off our chances and it certainly didn’t help matters but as Al Pacino says in his famous Godfather clip above…’just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in’.  Plus hey, we’re all fans…we want to find some way, any realistic way to make the postseason.  Essentially the standings look like this for us:

• Rangers 82 points, 10 GL
• Wings 80 points, 11 GL
• Leafs 80 points, 9 GL
• Caps 79 points, 10 GL
• Jackets 78 points, 11 GL
• Devils 75 points, 10 GL

All the bolded currently have playoff spots.  To keep it simple, the path of least resistance for us to make the playoffs is to pass the Leafs, Washington and Columbus (and we do have one game at home against the Caps in two weeks which could become vitally important).  Detroit has two more games in hand than the Leafs and the Rangers have another two points in the bank.  Of course the picture could change more by Thursday, since the Devils have three days off before the final push.  And out-of-town help only is going to do so much, the Devils themselves have to go on a massive streak starting now.  Minimum they need to win eight of their final ten and even that might not be enough, but the Devils only play two playoff teams in that stretch so it’s still there for them if they can just maintain some consistency.

Andy Greene celebrates Thursday’s OT winner

For all the problems surrounding the 2013-14 Devils, one thing even I can’t deny…one way or another the team usually makes it exciting in the end.  Especially with our dual propensity to blow big leads, but still have the capability of winning games dramatically.  Both attributes were on display last night at the Rock in a script that’s becoming predictable yet still remains an emotional roller coaster from game-to-game, if not period to period.  With no fewer than twenty-two overtime games out of seventy played and countless other one-goal decisions, the Devils are probably more enjoyable for neutrals to watch than their own frazzled fans.  Even leading scorer Jaromir Jagr mused after the Devils’ 4-3 win against the Wild that ‘the fans pay a lot of money for the tickets, so we’ve got to make them excited’.

If last night’s game turned out to be the Devils’ latest installment of the Perils of Pauline, it started out more as a referendum on ex-captain Zach Parise, as well as current coach Pete DeBoer – who got by far the loudest boos I’ve heard him get to this point during the intros last night.  Not a patch on the boos Parise got during intros and throughout the game every time he touched the puck (I just refer to this as the Scott Gomez treatment), but still loud enough to send a clear message with the Devils on their way to a second straight playoff-less season.  Ironically DeBoer probably had one of his best lineup cards of the season, at least to start the game…benching slumping forwards Damien Brunner and Steve Bernier, and going with seven defensemen to keep Eric Gelinas in the lineup for his PP prowess and in spite of his various defensive hiccups.  DeBoer also restored Cory Schnieder to the crease after Martin Brodeur suffered two straight losses, and early on it paid some dividends after Schnieder stoned Parise of all people on a two-on-none breakaway…a shorthanded breakaway no less.

In fact, the Devils’ power play did not get off to a fantastic start failing miserably on a five-minute major beginning at the end of the first period when the Wild’s Nate Prosser elbowed Tim Sestito in the head and was ejected.  Sestito would not return, so in essence the Devils were now down to ten forwards.  With perennial doghouse member Jacob Josefson only getting shorthanded duty and very infrequent even-strength shifts from then on, the Devils essentially had to roll three lines.  Fortunately, another of our slumping forwards had already gotten the Devils on the board earlier when Michael Ryder scored his first goal in more than two months at 16:58 of the opening period, finishing off a nice give-and-go play from Patrik Elias and Adam Henrique with a patented wrister from the slot we’ve seen too little of lately.

Although scoring on the power play was an issue early, scoring shorthanded was not as Henrique and Elias were again involved in the second goal, this time culminating after Henrique found a wide open Mark Fayne at the point with a nifty backhand pass.  Showing the patience of an actual goalscorer, Fayne took his time advancing and then fired a wrister over the glove of Ilya Bryzgalov for his fourth goal of the season at 9:35 of the second.  While Fayne admitted he didn’t get the shot as high as he would have liked, at least it hit the net and was good enough to score his fourth of the season.  Interestingly, the Devils managed six shots in the opening three minutes of the period while still on the power play though only two the rest of the middle frame – with one of the two being Fayne’s goal.

Up 2-0 after a effective if not convincing first two periods, the Devils’ shutout didn’t last long into the third period as a Ryan Suter snap shot beat Schnieder through traffic near the end of a Wild power play to cut the deficit in half after just twenty-one seconds.  At the arena in fact, it was announced as Parise’s goal as the official scorer thought it was tipped but after a scoring review today the goal went back to Suter.  Of course the boos were palpable when Parise was credited with the goal, and of course these days you always start thinking ‘oh my god, here we go again’ as a Devil fan.  To their credit, the Devils didn’t let that goal deter them and just minutes later got their own power play which they did take advantage of when Ryane Clowe found Jagr with a turnaround backhand pass in the slot, which the 700-goal scorer put in with a wrister for his twenty-third goal of the season at 3:34.

Going off on a slight tangent for a minute before I get to the frantic finish, even if I had wanted to back out of being at this game (and believe me, when it looked like Brodeur was going to be traded to Minnesota I did want to find a way out of going) I had to go because it was my good friend’s birthday – and she was sitting with four of our other friends in section 130 while I was in 120 with my seatmates who happened to be there last night – it’s a good thing my seatmates came too, since 130 was too packed to move over by my other friends until later in the game.  Before the game me and my friend had dinner and then drove to our other friends’ house and went to the arena in two cars in case they had to leave early to get home to their newborn, which they did.  From what I found out later, the husband admitted he thought the game was over at 3-1.  I was like, ‘I would have kicked him if he said that in front of me…these games are never over with the Devils!’.

Although honestly I didn’t think last night would be one of those nights when Jagr scored so quickly after Suter’s goal and the Devils went into cruise control for several minutes.  Then….sigh, another off-angle soft shot goal allowed by Schnieder to Mikael Granlund, keeping up Schnieder’s awful play since the Olympics with at least a bad goal against every game.  Not only did that goal at 10:36 get me rolling my eyes and saying ‘uh oh’, but it seemed to frazzle the Devils who started taking penalties galore and eventually surrendered the tying goal on a Matt Cooke tip-in at 15:28.  During the period between Granlund and Cooke’s goals, my friend texted me that our other friends had left so I could come over to sit in one of the vacated seats but since there was no stoppage in play I had to stay in my section for several minutes until Cooke tied it up.  Then I was so annoyed I left the section at that point and watched the next two minutes in the hall before there was finally another stoppage.  Needless to say I wasn’t in a festive mood when I finally wound up over there.

Too bad the Devils didn’t give out their promo items (stress pucks lol) until after the game, it would have been a good night to use them during the game.  Eventually the two teams grinded their way to overtime, where the Devils had to win or risk almost certain defeat in the shootout – especially given Parise’s prowess in it, and Schnieder’s lack of.  If our 0-8 record in the skills competition has been an eyesore, our 9-5 record in overtime has been a godsend…and proved to be so one more time last night when Elias gained entry into the Minnesota zone with nifty stickhandling, then put a shot on net which Henrique tried to stuff in but instead the puck bounced to a wide-open Andy Greene and he did the honors of finishing the game with his eighth goal of the season two minutes into OT.  When one of my other friends – who’s the biggest goofball alive – asked if I was happy now, I at first said yeah and then corrected myself saying ‘relieved is a better word’.  Cause really defeat would have provided all but certain extinction from the playoff race with the Blue Jackets, Red Wings and Flyers all winning again last night.

As it is, the Devils face a total must-win tomorrow against the Rangers at the Rock.  With only twelve games left and still five points back or more of all the teams in front of them for a berth, time is running out fast.  Despite Schnieder getting the win (as ugly as it was), DeBoer’s going back to Brodeur tomorrow, which is of course totally inconsistent with the way he handles Brodeur – never benching him after his ugly wins.  Of course there’s the dual factor involved of Brodeur wanting revenge for his Yankee Stadium debacle and the team wanting to acede to a legend who’s become more and more of a loose cannon by the day, shockingly taking his own GM to task yesterday with a public criticism over how the organization handled the Parise FA situation.

“We had plenty of chances,” Brodeur said. “We had two years to talk to him and figure out something and we waited and waited and it was too late…When you know you have an athlete that is going to be a game breaker and he’s going to be one of the top players (available) and the rules are free agency comes a lot younger than it used to, you have to make commitments.  You see around the league some of the guys, the (Steven) Stamkos and etc., they don’t wait. They get them done. And we let him walk to free agency.”

While I’ve been critical myself of the way Lou’s handled certain UFA’s (mainly our archaic policy of not negotiating in-season), it’s a bit unseemly for Brodeur to criticize an organization that arguably is torpedoing its season bending over to him time and again and not allowing Schnieder to find any kind of a rhythm post-Olympics – he hasn’t had back-to-back starts since the break yet.  Besides, how would Brodeur know what Parise and Lou may or may not have talked about in their own negotiations?  I seriously doubt Lou would have told his goaltender that he wasn’t negotiating with Zach.  If he got that idea from anywhere it was Zach’s camp though Parise himself publicly pooh-pooed the idea that Lou waited too long.  Granted, Parise was possibly trying to play to the fans…if he was, it obviously didn’t work, but let’s be honest about one thing…Parise sure as shooting wasn’t going to tell Marty that he was texting Suter during the season now was he?  So clearly there wasn’t full disclosure one way or another from Zach.

If Marty truly felt that way he should have said something two years ago instead of waiting till before the most important game of the season when he had an axe to grind, which he clearly does since he’s obviously mad at the organization both for the Schnieder draft-day trade (and release of good buddy Johan Hedberg that resulted from it), as well as the fact Brodeur was not traded when he did everything to make his wishes known short of overtly calling a press conference to announce he wanted a trade.  According to various media outlets, he was furious when he wasn’t traded though perhaps part of the blame comes from his own camp if there was indeed a deal in place to send him to the Wild but the public speculation about it on deadline day could well have ended any discussions since Lou has been known before to nix a trade if something leaks.  We know Lou wouldn’t leak it and I don’t think Wild GM Chuck Fletcher would be stupid enough to do so.

It wouldn’t shock me at all if all the furor surrounding Marty since the break has had an effect on Cory too, especially with the lack of action he’s gotten as the team’s given Marty whatever start he wanted – giving him the Isle game off the break just in case it was his last game, then the Wing game which was surreptitously hyped up as his last possible home game, then after Cory imploded in Detroit just after the deadline the die was cast and we were back to the Marty Show again.  Of course Cory himself needs to step it up too, before I start to fully believe he’s overrated based on a Vancouver team that inflates the save percentage of all its goalies.  Pity that Marty’s Favre-esque behavior is marring whatever enjoyment I’d get out of his final season as a Devil.  Obviously it is going to be his final season here at this point with all the bad blood that seems to exist from Marty’s side toward the organization, and the fact he thinks he can still be a starting goalie in the league and wants to chase 700 wins, all that nonsense.

And so it’s with even more drama that we head into tomorrow’s game, with Brodeur getting one more ‘we love you now please pipe down’ start, and without any real resolution of whether Schnieder’s the guy we should be tying our fate to long-term after Marty leaves.

Parise in his best moment as a Devil

It’s already been nearly two years since Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, when one-time Devils captain Zach Parise scored the opening goal in a 2-1 Devils win.  In the twenty-one plus months since Parise’s last game in New Jersey, obviously a lot has happened – between the ‘dream team’ like hookup of Parise and boyhood friend Ryan Suter in Minnesota less than a month after the Finals, another lockout, the Devils’ other superstar winger Ilya Kovalchuk going home to Russia and swimming in rubles, and most likely two straight seasons of missing the playoffs. Make no mistake, if there was any chance of a muted reception towards Parise tonight given all the time that’s elapsed and the relatively non-combative departure of Parise, it’s pretty much evaporated given the Devils’ precarious position.  Five points behind Columbus (with them having a game in hand) and seven behind anyone else for a playoff spot, it seems as if this schedule was timed perfectly to push the Devils off the cliff in the most excruciating week possible, a week full of reunions and rivalries at the Rock.

Obviously on Tuesday one-time fired coach Claude Julien got the best of us yet again, with our PP-aided comeback win in Boston earlier this season and a meaningless Fan Appreciation Day game in 2011 being the only times we’ve beaten the Bruins since the 2009-10 season.  Thankfully I followed through on my promise to boycott the last two games…apparently the team themselves no-showed both as well.  Not only is Parise coming back tonight but Sunday’s game against the Leafs features the return of David Clarkson after he left as a FA last summer.  And oh yes, the Yankee Stadium rematch on Saturday with the final game of the season between the Devils and Rangers.  A home-dominated stretch that at one time looked to be a catapult for a fast finish now looks like the most tortorous way to be eliminated short of losing to the Rangers in the playoffs, or what happened against Carolina in 2009.

With the Devils’ impending elimination and the specter of two lost seasons as a backdrop, Parise comes back as a convenient target for the fans’ venom.  Especially since Kovalchuk won’t be coming back to an NHL rink anytime soon.  Not that Parise doesn’t deserve grief for stringing the Devils along, publicly crying about wanting a long-term extension for eighteen months then not signing one.  As well as the public admission that he and Suter were texting during the season discussing FA while Parise was in the midst of captaining the Devils to a playoff run.  At least he didn’t go to the Flyers or Penguins the way he could have in the summer of ’12 with the Flyers supposedly offering both him and Suter even more money than the Wild did, but apparently Suter didn’t want to come East according to none other than Devils GM Lou Lamoriello – who admitted after Parise left he explored bringing in the ex-Predator defenseman in FA as well.  And to his credit, Parise didn’t publicly throw former ownership under the bus for the money issues the Devils were having at the time.

For his part, Parise has seen Devil fan reactions to various FA departures like Scott Gomez and Paul Martin before, and he admitted he expects to be booed:

“I’m expecting it,” he said. “It’s fine. They’re passionate about their team and it’s understandable. I guess if they wouldn’t even care to acknowledge that I was back, that would be a little different…I’ve said it before: what’s important to me is how good I was treated when I was there.  I understand sports. Fans love their players and their teams and they don’t want to see players leave. But the part I’ll remember most is how good they were to me when I was there, and that’s what matters.”

While it’s true we have booed some guys, Devil fans aren’t entirely without feeling…others like Brian Gionta, John Madden and Brian Rafalski who left as FA’s got cheered every time they came back.  Even Jamie Langenbrunner got polite applause on being introduced in the lineup during his return despite a messy exit in 2010-11.  That said Parise’s going to be firmly in the Gomez/Martin camp as far as fan reaction.  Maybe his departure wasn’t as bloody as it could have been but it was still painful having your captain and a homegrown Devil leave town weeks after the team’s inspiring playoff run that came up just short of the ultimate prize in LA.  Although honestly I’m booing Parise at this point more because he’s a convenient outlet for our failed two seasons – which let’s be honest, was in large part caused by his departure.  Plus Daddy Dearest didn’t thrill me at the time either, as JP made all sorts of inflammatory public comments in the months leading up to Zach’s depature.  Of course you’re free to do what you want in FA…and conversely fans are also free to react how they’re going to react, especially when the player acts one way and then does an about-face when push comes to shove.  At least for all the deserved crap Gomez gets, he never made any bones about the fact he was going to free agency.   It wouldn’t shock me if Suter was booed too, by extension.

It’s true tonight isn’t the first game Parise will be playing against the Devils (a forgettable 4-0 loss up there in November was his first game against his former mates) but make no mistake about it, he won’t just be playing the Devils tonight…he’ll be playing the fans too, although he’ll do his best to block out the inevitable reception he gets.  And dressing within yards of the locker room he called home for years, although this time he’ll be wearing the number eleven dressed in white and green – with Wild captain Mikko Koivu wearing #9, ironically enough.  I’m not even getting into previewing the game itself, sadly tonight’s not about the game although yes it would be nice to stick it to Parise and his team a little bit, they are seven points up on a playoff spot after all while we’re five back of one.  So even playing spoiler is unlikely, win or lose with the Wild likely to make the playoffs for a second straight season since Parise and Suter got there.  If anything tonight’s just about avoiding embarassment in a two-season long stretch of embarassments.  I could easily picture a 3-1 game with Parise sealing it on an empty-netter late as boos rain from the sky.

I figure on the occasion of Petr Sykora announcing his retirement today I’d take a break from lamenting the current state of the team to look back at happier times.  While the Czech sniper who scored over 300 goals in the NHL seemed to be out of the league for good after not catching on with a team last season or this, he only officially announced his retirement from the game today.  Perhaps Sykora’s most impressive stat is the fact he went to six Stanley Cup Finals in his fifteen-year career, and did it with three different teams – us three times, the Penguins twice and with the Ducks once.

It doesn’t seem like it was nearly two decades since Sykora burst onto the scene in the ’95-96 season as a first-round pick (18th overall) and actually put up 42 points in 63 games that season.  However, he spent most of the following season getting further seasoning in Albany and only joined the Devils for good in the latter part of the ’97-98 season when both he and Czech-mate Patrik Elias became regulars in the Devil lineup.  Soon after that with the arrival of big centerman Jason Arnott from Edmonton, the threesome formed the A-line – one of the most successful and revered lines in Devil history.  On that line, Sykora had his three best seasons in terms of point total from 1999-2001 (getting 72, 68 and 81 points respectively) and also set a career high in goals with 35 in 2000-01.  With individual success came team success as the Devils won a division title in ’98-99, the Stanley Cup in ’99-00 and the Prince of Wales trophy in ’00-01.

Somewhat memorably, Sykora cut an inspirational figure in Game 6 of the 2000 Finals when Derian Hatcher knocked him out of the game with a first-period cheap shot.  Even though he wouldn’t be able to celebrate his first Stanley Cup on the ice with his teammates after Arnott’s OT winner, good buddy Elias made sure his presence wasn’t forgotten – bringing his jersey onto the ice and wearing it during the celebration (before coach Larry Robinson put it on himself).  In many ways, the following season was Sykora’s best in the league, with 35 goals, 81 points and a +36 in the regular season as both he and the A-line were in top form.  Although the Devils ultimately dissapointed in the Finals against the Avalanche, Sykora did all he could to try to secure a repeat with ten goals and twenty-two points in 25 playoff games – including the late, dramatic winner in Game 4 that briefly turned the series and is shown on the video above.

Of course things went downhill after that for both Sykora and the team in 2001-02, as he slumped to 48 points during a season where Arnott was traded, Robinson fired and Sykora himself contreversially sat out a crucial first-round game against the Hurricanes with a bruised foot in a series the Devils eventually went down to defeat in six games.  Clearly that stain was a factor in the big offseason trade that summer which sent Sykora to the Ducks for forward Jeff Friesen and defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky.  As if Hollywood was scripting it, next year’s Finals were the Cinderella Ducks going up against the Devils.  Sykora did not have a big playoffs that year as the Ducks eventually lost to the Devils in Game 7 (with ironically Friesen being one of the big heroes of the Devils’ run), but he did score arguably the most memorable goal of his career in Game 1 of the Ducks’ second round series with the top-seeded Stars, sending everyone mercifully home with a goal in the fifth OT of a marathon that eventually helped propel the Ducks past Dallas in six games.

Sykora played another season and a half in Anaheim sandwiched around the lockout of 2004-05, before moving onto the Rangers for the latter half of the ’05-06 season.  Ironically Sykora found himself against his former mates again in the playoffs, but despite some first-rate scoring chances he was held off the scoresheet in a four-game sweep by the Devils.  After a season in Edmonton, Sykora went to Pittsburgh for two seasons and had a final top-shelf offensive season in 2007-08 with 63 points though he’d have to wait one more season before finally winning the Cup again and getting to celebrate on the ice this time as the Penguins beat Detroit in a memorable Game 7 in Hockeytown.  It seemed as if Sykora’s NHL career was over after a forgettable 14-game stint in Minnesota during the 2009-10 season as the little Czech winger eventually went back home to play in the Czech league before a stint in the KHL.

However, Sykora eventually found a happy ending to his career where it all began – back in New Jersey as he parlayed a training camp invite into a roster spot, and for only the third time in his career managed to play all 82 regular season games (as well as 18 of the Devils’ 25 playoff games), putting up a very respectable 21 goals and 23 assists in a complementary role on a team that eventually would go all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals.  Although he wasn’t an every-game player during the playoff run, the shot never deserted him even at the end, as goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov could attest to after Sykora scored on one of his classic wristshots in Game 1 of the Devils’ second round series against the Flyers.  Perhaps the Devils could have used one more season from Sykora last year when they were busy running out the likes of Bobby Butler and Matt D’Agostini trying in vein to pump life into an offense that would finish 29th in the shortened season.  Alas, it wasn’t to be and Sykora quietly retired today after only playing a handful of games in Switzerland last season.

At least he was able to finish his career in style with us two years ago, recapturing some of the good times with Devil fans.  Sykora finished up with 323 goals, 398 assists and 721 points in 1017 regular-season games and 34-33-67 in 133 NHL playoff games, along with two Stanley Cup wins (’99-00 with us and ’08-09 with the Penguins).