Kings having a Devil of a time

Associated Press

Watching the New Jersey Devils attempt to become the first team in seven decades to come back from a 3-0 deficit in the Stanley Cup final is causing Glenn “Chico” Resch to have flashbacks.

Before you get too excited: Resch wasn’t a member of the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, the only team in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup after trailing 3-0. But he knows about coming back from big deficits in the playoffs, and is seeing it again in the New Jersey’s series with the Los Angeles Kings.

A former Devils goaltender, who is now their television analyst, Resch was a member of the New York Islanders in 1975, when the team was involved in two series in which they trailed by three.

In the first, the Islanders rallied from the brink of elimination and won four straight against the Pittsburgh Penguins, including a 1-0 win in Game 7. Right after that, the team lost the first three games to the defending champion Philadelphia Flyers, tied the series and then lost Game 7.

Resch believes little separates the Devils and Kings in this series and both teams know it.

Three of five games have been decided by one goal and a fourth was a two-goal margin because of an empty-net tally. The only blowout was Game 3 in Los Angeles, when the Kings beat New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur with a controversial goal early, and then blew the door open in the third, en route to a 4-0 win.

But the fact remains that the Kings still have two chances to win their first Stanley Cup. And Staples Center will be rocking tonight for a team that still dictated large pockets of play Saturday night in Newark. It just didn’t get credit for it in the end.

To a man, the Kings downplayed feeling any added pressure after losing two games in a row in the postseason for the first time this year, a playoff run that has seen them go 15-4.

“I don’t think we have any doubt,” defenseman Drew Doughty said. “We never thought that it was going to be easy. We never thought we were going to win four in a row. We expected a long series.”