New Jersey Best in East After Win at Montreal

The New Jersey Devils are ready for a bit of downtime before embarking upon the defense of their Stanley Cup title.

Martin Brodeur got his ninth shutout of the season Saturday night as the Devils clinched first place in the Eastern Conference with a 2-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens at Montreal.

“The guys have had to work extremely hard,” Devil Coach Larry Robinson said. “It’s not been so difficult maybe physically, but mentally it’s been a tough stretch, so it’s kind of nice to have these next couple of days of preparation in order to get ready for the real season.”

Brodeur stopped 21 shots for his 42nd victory as the Atlantic Division champions finished 48-19-12-3 for 111 points.

“Now it’s over, so we’ve got to start from scratch,” Brodeur said. “Everybody’s on the same page and we’re going to enjoy our four days before we have to start again.”

The Devils, who got goals from Scott Niedermayer and Sergei Brylin, will face either the Toronto Maple Leafs or Carolina Hurricanes in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Devils won their second Stanley Cup last season under Robinson, who assumed the coaching duties with eight games left in the regular season.

“It’s hard to win it, and it’s doubly hard to repeat it,” Robinson said.

Niedermayer scored his sixth goal 4:46 into the game to complete a fine passing play by Randy McKay. Niedermayer also drew an assist when Brylin added his 23rd goal with 8:19 gone in the second.

“They came out pretty hard early on,” Niedermayer said. “We just managed to play the way we wanted to and probably discouraged them a little bit.”

The Canadiens, winners of 24 Stanley Cups, finished out of the playoffs for the third consecutive season for only the second time since joining the NHL as a charter member in 1917.

Edmonton 4, Vancouver 2--Doug Weight scored a goal and assisted on three others at Vancouver, Canada, as the Oilers clinched sixth place in the Western Conference.

Weight scored into an empty net with one second left to play and set up Sven Butenschon, Mike Grier and Eric Brewer as the Oilers won for the first time in five games.

Edmonton will open against the Dallas Stars in the first round of the playoffs for the third consecutive season and fourth time in five years.

Drake Berehowsky and Matt Cooke scored for the Canucks, who finished the season in eighth place in the West after winning only two of their last 17 games.

Philadelphia 4, Pittsburgh 3--John LeClair’s power-play goal with 20.4 seconds left in overtime at Philadelphia kept alive the Flyers’ hopes for home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

The Flyer are tied with the Buffalo Sabres for the No. 4 seeding in the Eastern Conference entering the last day of the regular season. The Flyers play at Buffalo today, and they need a victory to get home-ice advantage in the playoffs because Buffalo holds the tiebreaker edge.

St. Louis 1, Nashville 0--Keith Tkachuk scored in the first period and Roman Turek stopped 19 shots at St. Louis.

Ottawa 5, Toronto 3--Wade Redden scored two goals and Patrick Lalime stopped 35 shots to lead the Senators at Ottawa in a possible first-round playoff preview.

Boston 4, New York Islanders 2--Joe Thornton scored two goals and Byron Dafoe stopped 29 shots for the Bruins at Boston.

Dallas 5, San Jose 4--Mike Modano scored his second goal on a backhand shot with 2:50 left in overtime at San Jose and the Stars ended the regular season with a 13-game unbeaten streak.

Detroit 4, Colorado 3--The Red Wings took a 4-0 period in the second period at Detroit and extended their home unbeaten streak to a franchise-record 19 games.

The Red Wings broke a record they shared with the 1931-32 and 1954-55 teams.

Florida 3, New York Rangers 0--Kevyn Adams, Denis Shvidki and Paul Laus scored in an 86-second span of the third period at Sunrise, Fla., and Robert Luongo stopped 25 shots for his franchise-record fifth shutout.

Florida’s Pavel Bure, who leads the NHL with 59 goals, failed in his attempt to score 60 for the third time in his career.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Chasing the Cup

How the best-of-seven first-round series shape up:

WESTERN CONFERENCE

1. Colorado vs. 8. Vancouver

2. Detroit vs. 7. Kings

3. Dallas vs. 6. Edmonton

4. St. Louis vs. 5. San Jose

EASTERN CONFERENCE

1. New Jersey vs. 8. Carolina or Toronto

2. Ottawa vs. 7. Toronto or Carolina

3. Washington vs. 6. Pittsburgh

4./5. Buffalo vs. 5./4. Philadelphia