A Roy Deal for Brodeur; a Raw Deal for Giguere

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. —  Late in the second period at the Continental Airlines Arena Thursday, a lingering murmur became a roaring chant.

Strong enough to shake the cover of the Hockey News. Hearty enough to drown out a Will Smith song. Loud enough to be heard on Jay Leno’s couch.

“Mar-ty’s bet-ter, Mar-ty’s bet-ter.”

At one end of the ice, the New Jersey Devils’ Martin Brodeur was twiddling his gloves.

At the other end, the Mighty Ducks’ Jean-Sebastien Giguere was smashing his stick.

Two games into a Stanley Cup finals that was supposed to be a coronation, reality has pulled off a bloodless coup.

Brodeur, the goaltender with consecutive shutouts after the Devils’ 3-0 victory Thursday, has regained his status as the heir apparent to Patrick Roy.

Giguere, the Ducks’ darling, has lost his Jiggy.

Said Brodeur: “When I look back and see these things when I’m retired, it will be really nice.”

Said Giguere: “I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to allow myself to be better and compete harder.”

Brodeur spoke from a cloth-covered table in the main press room. Giguere stood on a black box back by the loading dock.

Brodeur was as calm as his clean-shaven cheeks. Giguere was as angry as his beard.

Marty, what do you think about when you hear you’re the first goaltender in 58 years to start the finals with back-to-back shutouts?

“You’ve got to be really excited to start the series with confidence,” he said.

Jiggy, what do you think about teammate Steve Thomas saying that some of the Ducks are overwhelmed?

“Might be,” he said.

Admittedly, judging the two on the basis of this series is like comparing sun block salesmen in Anaheim and East Rutherford. Giguere has fought bad traffic and bad luck while Brodeur has fought mostly boredom.

In the decisive second period Thursday, Giguere was asked to stop a shot off a skate and another off a knee -- accomplishing neither -- while Brodeur faced only two shots in the entire 20 minutes.

In the first two games, Giguere has faced 54 shots while Brodeur has faced 32.

“We have to help him out more,” Jason Krog said of Giguere. “And we have to put more pressure on the other guy.”

Yet still, in championship events of all sports, perception is reality. It is a perception that was cemented Thursday in an eight-minute span in the third period.

At 4:22 of the period, Jeff Friesen backhanded a goal directly between Giguere’s pads, which suddenly don’t seem illegally large.

Giguere was so angry, he banged his stick, busted it, and threw it down on the ice.

“It’s not what he did,” said Giguere, still mad later. “It’s what I did that mattered on the play.”

Later, at 12:08 of the period, Brodeur threw his stick out of his right hand and lunged to his left to glove a Sandis Ozolinsh shot.

For which the best accompanying quote came from the 19,040 fans.

Yeah, you guessed it.

“Mar-ty’s bet-ter, Mar-ty’s bet-ter.”

Considering that two games into this ultimate showdown, Giguere has allowed five goals and Brodeur has allowed zip, the contention is difficult to argue.

While Giguere said he never heard the taunting, his family certainly did. They had driven down from Blainville, Quebec, for the game, delightfully greeting reporters beforehand while standing in the parking lot, barefoot and drinking beer.

Giguere was a great story. He’s still a great story. But he’s slowly becoming a somewhat different story.

“He’s had a lot of success, and everyone was talking about him,” said Devil defenseman Scott Stevens. “Then he had a lot of time off, giving people time to talk more.”

The implication being, of course, that all that talk filled his head and broke his concentration.

Giguere refused to accept that notion, preferring instead to share the pressure with the offense, whose lack of activity in front of the Devils’ goal has led to Brodeur’s ability to chill.

“The more you put traffic in the net, the harder it is for the goalie,” Giguere said. “It’s been like this for 75 years. I mean, if we want to have any kind of success against Marty, knowing how good he is, we need to put traffic in front of him.

“Nothing fancy; exactly what they did, and we might have a chance to score.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

Brodeur has a half-dozen shutouts in these playoffs, tying Dominik Hasek for the NHL record for one postseason. With 19 career playoff shutouts, he trails Roy’s record by only four.

He is on a pace to surpass Roy’s record 551 regular-season wins. And if the Devils win this series, he will have his name written three times on the Stanley Cup, just once fewer than Roy.

OK, so nobody plays any songs when he makes a big save.

And, yeah, he stopped being cuddly this winter when he publicly acknowledged he was having an affair with his brother-in-law’s wife.

But in the biggest of games in the most legendary of series, the dude can stop a shot.

“I find he’s not an actor,” said Pat Burns, the Devils’ coach. “You see a lot of guys who put on a show. He’s a real person.”

And unless the Devils stop gettin’ Marty with it, the Ducks are in real trouble.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

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Most Shutoutsin NHL Playoffs

*--* ShO Goaltender Teams 23 Patrick Roy (1984-2003) Montreal, Colorado 19 Martin Brodeur (1991- ) New Jersey 15 Clint Benedict (1917-30) Montreal Maroons, Ottawa 15 Curtis Joseph (1989- ) St. Louis, Edmonton, Toronto, Detroit 14 Jacques Plante (1952-65, Montreal, St. Louis ‘68-73) 13 Turk Broda (1936-52) Toronto 12 Terry Sawchuk (1949-70) Detroit, Kings 12 Dominik Hasek (1990-2002) Buffalo, Detroit

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