They were somewhere over the Western Plains yesterday, travelling left to right on your map, when two guys with more than 1,000 games apiece looked back at their careers and noticed that one had finally checked a box that had been empty for 15 seasons.

This is all familiar stuff for Petr Sykora, of course. He’s been to the Stanley Cup Finals five times, and if you looked closely at the 2,237 names on that gaudy silver spitoon, you’d find his engraved on it in two places.

As for Dainius Zubrus ... eh, not so lucky. In fact, the 3-1 gut-check the Devils survived in Game 4 in El Lay — which couldn’t have happened if the 6-5 winger didn’t do his job with his usual efficiency — was something he had never experienced before, as this is his first visit to the show since getting swept out of the ’97 Finals with Philadelphia.

“He kind of mentioned something,” Zubrus said of Sykora, his usual travel partner. “Yeah, after 15 years, it’s my first Finals win, and it’s nice.

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“But that’s really all it is. It’s just one win right now. And we’re still in the hole. We’re thinking of only one game at a time.”

One game? If only they had that luxury.

One period, one shift at a time is more like it.

That’s how Zubrus and his mates approached the onerous task of climbing out of the 0-3 hole the Kings had dropped them in, and Zubrus did it the old-fashioned way: by throwing his 225 pounds around behind Jonathan Quick’s net during that third period at Staples Center Wednesday night.

Because after 138 agonizing minutes of wondering whether Quick was invincible, the Devils now had their answer: nope, not quite.

It took Zubrus to settle that issue, digging the puck out of a scrum and sliding it to Bryce Salvador at the left point, leading to a rebound that

Patrik Elias backhanded past the Kings’ superb goalie.

Maybe you say big deal, that 1-zip lead didn’t last, and you’d be right. It was almost cruel that the Devils had skated through hell to get their first lead of this series, and that L.A. would need only one (inane) whistle and one (screened) shot to erase it.

But the fact that the Devils’ extraordinary resilience showed up at that moment — just as they teetered on the precipice, with everyone expecting them to disappear over the ledge — will be regarded as perhaps the finest moment of their postseason, if they somehow survive it.

In fact, allow us to suggest something here, and after we have our say, you are welcome to summon the men with the white lab coats and prepare the rubber room.

Here it comes: This series may actually be a toss-up.

We made up our minds only after consulting a big Lithuanian with a 1,000-yard stare and a 22-year-old kid who started the year in Albany.

“We’re confident we can win the games,” Zubrus said from the podium yesterday at the Pru, just in from the airport.

"We're not looking too far ahead. We've been in some tough situations already in the playoffs, being behind some very good teams. I don't think we got too far ahead of ourselves — we took one game at a time and we were able to win some series.

"So our approach doesn't change: We put all our efforts into winning one game, and hopefully that happens."

Platitudes, okay. But after witnessing what the aforementioned kid did to decide Game 4, you tend to believe that anything is possible in sports, at least when Adam Henrique is writing new chapters to the laws of physiology on the fly.

By now, you’ve seen the winning goal at 15:29. The cross-ice pass from David Clarkson was a bit late, so Henrique — already a half-stride ahead of Slava Voynov — just captured it with his right skate, kicked it to his stick blade, and beat Quick from the sharp angle by tucking it into the northwest corner.

Henrique’s maneuver — retrieval-kick-flick-score — was about as jaw-droppingly fluid a play as you’ll see on this level.

Especially with a season at stake. Especially from a rookie, even if he is hotter than a $2 hair dryer.

But somewhere along the way, Kovalchuk and Zach Parise have to be great again. Somewhere along the way, the Kings have to lose just once on the road. We think.

"I know it's a cliché," coach Pete DeBoer said, "but I think if we win Saturday night, this series really takes a turn."

Maybe they get there. One period, one shift at a time.

Dave D'Alessandro: ddalessandro@starledger.com