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Langenbrunner's shootout goal caps Devils' comeback win

Feb 23, 2007 - 6:47 AM NEW YORK (Ticker) -- The New Jersey Devils relied on two of their hottest players to send the game beyond regulation. In the shootout, they turned to a player who had never before scored in the bonus format.

Jamie Langenbrunner's fluke goal in the fourth round of the shootout completed a comeback and lifted the Devils to a 3-2 triumph over the New York Rangers.

Entering having allowed just one goal over his previous two games, Martin Brodeur put his team in a 2-0 hole, surrendering tallies by Marcel Hossa 98 seconds into the contest and Petr Prucha midway through the second.

However, defenseman Brian Rafalski halved the deficit later in the middle session with his fifth goal in as many games, and Zach Parise scored with 7:13 remaining in the third to forge a 2-2 tie.

"We just never quit," Devils coach Claude Julien said. "We were down 2-0 and they were playing well. They were coming at us hard. I thought we were still playing a pretty good game, even though we were down 2-0, and we just kept at it and eventually got back into it."

After a scoreless overtime, Parise and New York's Michael Nylander scored on similar moves in the first round of the shootout. Brodeur and counterpart Henrik Lundqvist each stopped the next two attempts they faced, and Lundqvist got his glove on Langenbrunner's shot that opened the fourth round.

However, momentum carried the puck into the net, putting New Jersey ahead.

"It was one of those things," said Langenbrunner, who entered without a goal in four career shootout opportunities. "Everybody deked on him and I wanted to try something different. I saw him get a piece of it. I had a pretty good angle of where it was rolling and I thought he might reach and still grab it. But obviously, it just kind of trickled over him."

"I thought I made a save," Lundqvist said. "It went up and down, just under the crossbar there. I thought it was going over the net. The puck kind of died and went in."

Julien explained why he decided to go with a player with no previous shootout success in the critical spot.

"It was just one of those things," he said. "Sometimes you just have a feeling when players seem to be very confident in those areas, and he has been. It was a gut feeling from just watching him, and I felt that he was going to be able to do well at it."

With the last chance for the Rangers, Prucha was unable to beat Brodeur, sealing the Devils' third straight win and second in three days against their Atlantic Division rivals.

"What can you say, those last two games have been great," New Jersey center Scott Gomez said. "Anytime you get together with your cross-river rivals, it means a lot. And to come back, obviously the fans love the shootout. So to get the two points like that, it was a well-fought battle."

The Devils had a great opportunity to notch the win in overtime as Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr was called for goalie interference 54 seconds into the extra session after colliding with Brodeur.

"I didn't talk to (the referee), I don't think I have the right to talk to him," a surprised Jagr said. "He just told me to go to the bench. ... That's OK, it could be a lot worse."

"He ran right into me," said Brodeur, who appeared to embellish the hit in order to draw a penalty. "I don't know if that's worthy of a penalty or not, but he was trying to deke, he was trying to make a move and he's not really looking at where he's going."

Brodeur denied overreacting to the contact from Jagr.

"I didn't dive or anything at all," the All-Star netminder said. "He hit me in the shoulder really hard and I could have gotten hurt, my back against the post or whatever. Like I said, I'm not the one that's going to call the penalty on it. The referees can figure out that he could maybe have made that big of a contact (with me)."

Langenbrunner recorded two assists in regulation and Brodeur made 28 saves for New Jersey, which concluded the season series with a 5-2-1 record.

"I don't know if we're glad that we're done," Julien said of the series. "It's been great hockey and I think it's been great for the fans. ... This is what I think the league is looking for, those kind of rivalries to happen. Unfortunately, we played lots of games (against the Rangers) early in the season when maybe there wasn't much at stake at that point, and maybe that's what kind of took some of the edge away."

Lundqvist stopped 24 shots for the Rangers, who opened a season-high six-game homestand with their third loss in four games.

"I thought we deserved to win again," New York's Matt Cullen said. "We can't afford to lose those. ... We have to forget about it as soon as possible, take the point, and we need to come off the next game with two."

Hossa gave New York a 1-0 lead with his sixth goal in nine games, receiving a pass from defenseman Marek Malik, who was deep in his own zone, and skating in on a breakaway from New Jersey's blue line. After a deke, Hossa beat Brodeur to the stick side for his eighth of the season.

Prucha doubled the advantage during a power play at 9:20 of the second, digging a loose puck from the crease and depositing it past Brodeur for his third in four games. Jagr, whose stuff attempt in front was stopped, recorded his 893rd career assist on the play, leaving him one behind Phil Housley for 17th place on the all-time list.

After Rafalski got the Devils on the board with 6:26 to go in the second, Parise knocked in a rebound from the bottom of the left circle at 12:47 of the third for his 25th of the season and a 2-2 deadlock.

"Lundqvist is the type of goalie where you've got to crash the net," Parise said. "He's going to stop a lot of your initial shots and all I was trying to do was crash the net and I put it on my tape. ... Travis (Zajac) took a really good low shot and I was just crashing the net."

The goal was the 22-year-old Parise's fourth in five games.

"The guy has so much skill," Julien said. "We know his skating, his drive is there, but his skill level is just as good and he's just coming into his own. I think this guy just has so much potential to become even more as he gets experience. So it's really nice to see this guy perform the way he has right now."