It won't be easy for goalie Martin Brodeur to stomach a first-round exit from the playoffs if the Devils are unable to win the last two games of their series against the Florida Panthers.



But it won't be the worst he's had to endure.

“Losing in the Stanley Cup finals is probably the hardest thing I ever went through. And after that, losing to the Rangers in 1994 was probably the second thing,” Brodeur said today. “When you're so far from the goal and you lose, it's hard at the moment but you get over it because you look at the team that played against you and look at where they're going, how they do and say, 'Alright, it's not too bad.'

“But when you get so close, you go through so much adversity and so much success and come up short, you're like one of the other 29 teams -- you didn't win the Stanley Cup. That's kind of tough but I think it's worth giving it a shot. I was lucky to win three of them and the upside is a lot greater than the downside of losing late.”

He is trying to embrace this do-or-die predicament.



"You have to. These are great moments," Brodeur said. "Tough moments are made to become great moments. I think it could go one way or the other but you have to embrace it. You have a chance to do something good, push it to a Game 7. A lot of guys haven't played in Game 7s. So for us just to push and get a Game 7, that would be pretty cool.

“Even though we feel like we have to play Game 7s now all the time, we have no choice, but I think when it is a Game 7 it's going to be great. We have one a little earlier in Game 6, we have to play well and move on to Florida. The mood has been decent. It's tough when you know it could be your last game. I think you could see that guys are a little more in the clouds than usual. It's normal.”

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The team that has scored first has won four of five games in this series. So how vital is it for the Devils to get the first goal Tuesday?

"It would be nice. I don't think we'll get off the ice and leave if we don't score first," Zach Parise said. "We'd love to get the crowd into the game early. We'd love to make it a really tough atmosphere for them to play in but if the game is 0-0 all game, we're going to keep playing the whole game. In this series you've seen teams get three-goal leads and have them disappear pretty quickly. It would be ideal but if it doesn't happen it's alright."



Brodeur would like to see it.

“It would help. I think just for the psyche of players, especially when you're coming from a game where you didn't score a goal,” he explained. “I think you don't want to get (Florida’s) goalie in that rhythm again. Try to get goals on him as quick as possible. In a perfect world, it definitely would be nice to score first.”

Coach Pete DeBoer said scoring first is not imperative.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “We just have to play a solid game. If we’re playing well and they end up with the first goal, I’m not concerned about the outcome.”

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The Devils went 0-for-3 on the power play in Game 5, making them 1-for-11 on the road in this series. However, their PP is 3-for-7 at home.



"I think we can count on it," DeBoer said. "I think our power play has been pretty consistently good for the second half of the season. I think it's something we can count on at home or on the road. I felt the other night in Florida we had a couple of real good looks early and (Jose) Theodore made a couple of good saves or we might've grabbed the early lead."

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Ilya Kovalchuk on the pressure in Game 6: “I think it’s exciting. I’m sure it will be a sold-out building and the fans will be behind us. That’s what we need. We need that little push from them. It will be fun.”