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Whitewash Avs overwhelm Devils in Game 1 with 5-0 win
Updated: Tuesday June 12, 2001 10:04 PM
DENVER -- Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final turned into The Joe Show. Colorado Avalanche captain Joe Sakic had two goals and an assist as the Avs beat the defending champion New Jersey Devils 4-0 to take early control of the best-of-seven championship at the Pepsi Centre. Beat? Too nice a word. The Avs dominated the Devils in every aspect of the game. Speed, special teams, discipline...take your pick and the check mark went on the Colorado side of the ledger. "Tonight we looked like those guys with the shovels picking up the snow during the commercial breaks," said Devils centre Bobby Holik. "What it comes down to for us is we need to be better in all departments. We can analyze this until we're blue in the face but we got out-played, out-worked, out-hustled in all departments. They were the better team." Sakic gave Colorado goaltender Patrick Roy more than he would need as Roy ran his winning streak in Stanley Cup final games to 9-0, extended his playoff record to 18 shutouts and took the first round of the big matchup against Devils goalkeeper Martin Brodeur. Sakic's 10th and 11th goals of the playoffs -- Chris Drury, Rob Blake and Steven Reinprecht scored the Avs' other goals -- and Roy's goaltending put history squarely on the Colorado side. Since the National Hockey League introduced the best-of-seven format in 1939, the team winning Game 1 of the final has gone on to win the Cup 79 percent of the time (49 of 62). The last time a team lost the first game and came back to win the Cup was 1999 when the Dallas Stars did it. "Joe was simply Joe," said Colorado coach Bob Hartley. "Once again he gave us a great game. It's pretty normal for us to see performances like tonight. Joe Sakic has been carrying this hockey club from Game 1 of this season and tonight was not different." "I think obviously they weren't at their best and we came out ready to play," said Sakic. "It's only one game. We know they are going to be a lot better."
Roy, meanwhile, wasn't severely tested by a Devils team that looked tentative and nervous, over-handling and mishandling the puck and looking unable to match the Avs' speed. Roy made his best save on a 2-on-1 in the first period when the score was still just 1-0 on Sakic's first score. New Jersey's John Madden elected to shoot and Roy blocked the short shot with his stick. Roy ran his record playoff-win total to 134. Game 1 unfolded as a mismatch without much in the way of line matching. New Jersey coach Larry Robinson has been using centre Bobby Holik to check the opposition's top forwards and he was masterful in shutting down Pittsburgh Penguins stars Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr in the Devils previous series. Both coaches rolled four lines through much of the game. When Robinson did attempt to get Holik on the ice against Sakic, disaster struck. The shift, about halfway through the first period, started with the Devils' Scott Gomez opposing Sakic in the Avs' zone. When the play shifted to middle ice, Gomez went to the bench and Holik came on. There was confusion among the Devils at the New Jersey blue line. Defenceman Scott Stevens was stepping up and winger Sergei Nemchinov got caught flat-footed when the Avs' Milan Hedjuk dropped a backpass to Sakic which allowed him to fly around Nemchinov on the outside. From there, it was classic Sakic, owner of the most deadly wrist shot in the game, legs churning, bearing down on Brodeur, who was moving out to challenge him. Sakic's low snap shot found the space between Brodeur's pads and went through before Brodeur could snap his left leg behind him at 11:07 of the first.
After Drury made it 2-0 at 9:35 of the second, Sakic showed great patience after running down a long lob by Blake. He held the puck and cut into the middle of the Devils's zone giving Avs winger Alex Tanguay time to go to the net with Devils forward Petr Sykora. They piled onto Brodeur who didn't have a prayer of stopping Sakic's shot at 15:06. The defending champions looked like the more nervous of the two teams. Their rubber sticks, combined with the Avalanche's speed, left them fumbling passes and mishandling the puck. That was particularly evident during an elbowing penalty to Colorado's Shjon Podein when Sykora and Elias were not sharp at all, bobbling the puck and passing into skates. Robinson said he's seen his team play worse. "On a number of nights," he said. "It just looked like we didn't have our legs tonight and we were a step behind all night. Maybe the trip here took more out of us than we would like to admit or just a lack of effort or maybe a little of both." He refused to use the thinner air here as an excuse. "I think a lot of that is psychological to be honest with you," he said. "It's just that you can't get caught out there on long shifts. You have to change quicker and work harder."
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