About time for Ilya Kovalchuk to show up, wouldn’t you say?
The New Jersey Devils’ best player has been relatively quiet this postseason, scoring just twice in the series against the Florida Panthers and battling a mystery ailment. The Devils need him more than ever Tuesday night as they battle for their playoff lives in Game Six.
New Jersey has been bounced from the first round of the playoffs four of the last five years, and are in danger of that happening again down 3-2. Of course, the plan isn’t for Kovalchuck to hold the puck all night, and he has spent the last day focusing the attention on the team instead of himself.
“It’s not an individual sport,” said Kovalchuk, the Devils’ leading scorer in the regular season. “The worst thing I can do is try to do everything by myself. It has never worked out. I have tried it a lot of times in the past when I was frustrated and did things I shouldn’t do. That’s when you get yourself and the team in trouble.
“We’re a great team all year long and we just have to do what the coaches say.”
Kovlachuck led the team with 35 goals during the regular season, and did admit he will try to be more a factor on offense.
“I think all of us, we have to shoot the puck more and we have to create more traffic,” said Kovalchuk, who had a team-high 35 goals in the regular season. “We don’t want Theodore to feel comfortable in net. You know when we have traffic in front of him, he gives up a lot of rebounds. We just have to take advantage of it.”
The Panthers blanked New Jersey in Game Five, 3-0, and hope for a similar start tonight. Goaltender Jose Theodore had 30 saves in his second-career playoff shutout.
“It’s the same thing every game of this series,” Florida coach Kevin Dineen told the Associated Press. “The tempo always seems to be set right at the start of the game. So I would expect nothing less than that desperation mode for a team that’s down by one and also wants to win the series. It’s two clubs that will be colliding very early in the game.”
Florida hasn’t won a playoff series since 1996, when it captured the Eastern Conference championship. The Devils, meanwhile, have not won back-to-back playoff games since 2006, which happens to be the last time they won a playoff series. Goaltender Martin Brodeur, who played in that series, could retire if New Jersey is bounced again.
“Career-wise, I don’t think it’ll be the last, but I don’t know opportunity-wise,” Brodeur said. “If I do come back, who knows if we’ll be in 
this position again. It’s in the back of my head the opportunity we have with a team I really enjoyed playing with this year.”
Brodeur has been especially porous in the second period, where the Panthers have outscored New Jersey 7-1.
Devils vs Panthers Game 6 Odds at Bovada are favoring New Jersey by 1 1/2 goals, with a -160 moneyline on.