Them Devils are doin' it

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Crashing the net: Devils left-winger Zach Parise (left) falls behind Kings goalie Jonathan Quick (32) in the first period of Saturday's Game 5 in Newark. (BRUCE BENNETT / REUTERS)

NEWARK, N.J. -- The New Jersey Devils have now done something no one else has done this post-season and are inching closer to doing something no one has done since 1942.

The Devils put an end to the Los Angeles Kings' perfect road record in these Stanley Cup playoffs with a 2-1 victory in the best game to date in this best-of-seven series. They now trail 3-2 with Game 6 set for Monday night in L.A.

Brandon native Bryce Salvador scored the winner midway through the second period as he directed a wrist shot at the Kings net which caromed off L.A. blue-liner Slava Voynov and behind goalie Jonathan Quick.

"I faked a shot to try and buy myself a little time and then went cross-grain and fired it at the net," said Salvador, who missed all of last season with a concussion and then went without a goal in this year's regular season. He has now notched four in the playoffs.

"It must have hit 16 people on the way but it went in," he said.

Salvador has just 23 career regular-season goals through 692 games, but the 36-year-old is enjoying his new-found sniper status.

"I went 82 games without a goal, so I'm taking any goal I can get and anyway I can get them," said Salvador, who grew up in Brandon and played his junior hockey with the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

"It's fun to score, but the important thing is the team having success."

The Kings opened this series with three straight wins and have now failed to secure the Cup in two straight elimination games. The only team to ever rebound from a 3-0 deficit in the Stanley Cup final is the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs.

Los Angeles had won 10 straight road games and were also a perfect 2-0 in Game 5s. All those numbers can now be thrown out the window. History has nothing to do with what will happen next.

"We're in this thing now," said Devils winger Zach Parise, who scored his first goal of the series. "We've made it a series and we'll see what happens."

Devils coach Pete DeBoer said blue-liner Salvador, normally a difficult guy to play against, with more grit than finesse, has found some scoring punch at just the right time.

"That's something that he's really kind of mastered here over the last month of the playoffs. He's had great composure back there for us, getting shots through. We wouldn't be here without him," said DeBoer.

The Kings had lots of zip early and climbed all over the Devils but came up empty as 40-year-old goalie Martin Brodeur looked once again like the happy cherub who collected three Stanley Cups back in the day.

"I mean, what else can you say? Marty's performance speaks for itself. It's the timing of it. You know, I think the fact we're 9-1 or 10-1 in Games 4 through 7 in a series is a testament to how he enjoys that type of pressure," said DeBoer.

Quick looked like a lock to win the Conn Smythe Trophy after the first three games of the series but Brodeur has now outplayed him in back-to-back games.

The Devils scored first as Quick wandered out of his net to play the puck and flipped it behind his net to a waiting Parise, who then stepped to the crease and stuffed home a goal.

The Kings evened the score early in the second period as Justin Williams cut to the middle of the ice and used linemate Dustin Brown's screen to beat Brodeur with a wrist shot.

The team that has scored first in this series has now won every game.

"We needed the first goal. Regardless of how it looked, we needed the first goal," said DeBoer.

"I thought they controlled the first period. They were the better team in the first period, which was a little surprising. I don't know whether it was nerves for us or what. But they controlled the period. Marty made some big saves for us. We capitalized on a mistake. But it's nice that we're finding some holes in them right now."

Kings coach Darryl Sutter has said throughout the series the difference in each game has been minimal, and with every mistake comes a big price.

"We're probably saying what they said after Games 1 and 2, where we got breaks and now they did.

"That's how even it is. We hit a couple posts again tonight, and you hope one goes off the post and in," said Sutter. "I think if there's anything, you got to finish your opportunities. You got to work to get 'em, you pretty much have to not give up more than one."

Game 6 is scheduled for L.A.'s Staples Center (7 p.m., CBC).

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @garylawless

Gary Lawless, Winnipeg Free Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 10, 2012 B3