Devils Drop Maple Leafs

Even in street clothes, Scott Niedermayer helped the New Jersey Devils come back against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Patrik Elias scored two goals and Scott Stevens had a goal and an assist in a four-goal second period Wednesday night that carried the defending Stanley Cup champions to a 5-1 victory in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinal.

It marked the second consecutive year the Devils staged a major comeback to keep their hopes of a championship alive. This rally was particularly sweet since they did it with Niedermayer sidelined the last three games because of a concussion caused by a vicious elbow by Tie Domi late in Game 4.

“Everybody was thinking of Nieder,” fellow Devil defenseman Colin White said. “We wanted to give Nieder a chance to play again, and I think we may have just done that.”

Niedermayer was close to returning for Game 7 but was scratched after developing post-concussion headaches after skating on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.

The Devils didn’t need him, not with everyone playing the team game that helped them win 19 of their last 21 regular-season games.

The Devils, who also got goals from Sergei Nemchinov and John Madden, will play the winner of the Pittsburgh Penguin-Buffalo Sabres series in the conference finals. The Penguins and Sabres play Game 7 tonight at Buffalo, N.Y.

The best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals open Saturday at East Rutherford, N.J.

“Hopefully, I’ll be better,” said Niedermayer, who shook hands with Domi in a hallway after the game. “I want to play.”

In extending the Maple Leafs’ cup drought to 34 years, the Devils rallied from a 3-2 series deficit. They won at Toronto, 4-2, on Monday and then routed the Maple Leafs before a home crowd that started chanting “67” in the third period, the last year the Maple Leafs won the cup.

“We have a lot of pride playing for this organization,” Elias said. “We never give up. It looks like every time we have our backs to the wall we pick our game up and play our best games.”

The one-sided loss overshadowed how well the Maple Leafs played in the hard-fought series.

“You can never be satisfied in losing a series, especially in a series we truly felt we could have won,” Toronto’s Steve Thomas said.