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Prepared for battle Larry Robinson had Devils ready for Game 3
Posted: Monday June 05, 2000 06:36 PM
By Pierre McGuire, Sports Illustrated Had it not been for Dallas goalie Ed Belfour the Stars would have been blown out of Game 3. The Devils really did a great job controlling the boards (in both ends) and the puck in transition. Take your hat off to New Jersey coach Larry Robinson, who had his team prepared to play in a tough environment. The Devils supported the puck perfectly coming out of their own zone, and you could see that Robinson didn't want his troops just throwing the puck away when trying to beat the Stars' fine trap. By now everyone knows about the Devils Jason Arnott-Patrik Elias-Petr Sykora line, which didn't disappoint Saturday night. They had to fight through the tough checking of Guy Carbonneau and his linemates Mike Keane and Brendan Morrow. It was the first time all series that the Devils' top line faced a pure defensive line. Certainly Arnott, Elias and Sykora passed the test with flying colors. Arnott was huge in Game 3. He was strong on the puck and he showed a certain creativity with it, too -- something for which he's not usually known. Another factor in the Devils' Game 3 win was their ability to kill penalties at key moments. In the first period the Stars had a 5-on-3 advantage for 49 seconds, but couldn't do anything about it because of the great positional play of John Madden, Scott Stevens, and Scott Niedermayer. That threesome kept the Stars to the perimeter and didn't allow them to get pucks to the net. New Jersey also had to kill a Stars power play late in the game because goalie Martin Brodeur shot the puck over the glass (he was called for delay of the game). The Devils came up big again, in large part because of the way they pursued the puck at the point of attack. It's a great scheme late in any game, but especially in Dallas where the ice breaks down so much and makes puckhandling difficult. Coach Robinson gave his team confidence by playing Scott Gomez, Sergei Nemchinov and Alexander Mogilny through a matchup the Stars tried to force -- against Mike Modano and Brett Hull. Modano and Hull were also kept in check by New Jersey defensemen Scott Stevens and Brian Rafalski. Dallas better turn things up a notch in Game 4 or they're going to be out of this series soon. The Stars still haven't been very creative offensively and they often lack offensive-zone presence because of New Jersey's checking and puck movement. The Stars tried to create another offensive line in the third period of Game 3 as coach Ken Hitchcock put Jere Lehtinen on a line with Joe Nieuwendyk and John Sim. The Stars could really use the presence of Jamie Langenbrunner to help with the offense. Foot speed has been another issue in this series since Game 1. If the Stars can't find a way to get quicker and smarter, the burden of winning the Cup rests on the shoulders of Belfour. And the last time I checked, it's almost impossible for a goalie to not only stop the puck, but also to score goals at the other end.
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