Could the Devils' 7-year itch end in 2012?

This could be the year
Zach Parise finally
gets to hoist the Cup.

Updated Friday, 29 July 2011

It appears Yogi Berra is also thinking 2012 will be a great season for the Devils. Click here to read that story.

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It’s hard to believe it, but this season will mark the seventh – eighth if you count the lockout year – since the New Jersey Devils last won a Stanley Cup. Though it doesn’t seem like all that long ago, in relative terms, and in terms of the other championships the team has won, it’s the longest stretch between hoisting Cups. 

Consider this, however. 

If there were a time for this team to surprise everyone … a time just like in 2003 when no one ever thought the Devils would win a Stanley Cup, the 2011-2012 season is ripe for another run, especially for the sake of Hall-of-Fame goalie Martin Brodeur. 

Last year’s season, while one might be tempted to call it successful given the first half of the year, truly wasn’t. In fact, in terms of Devils hockey, real Devils hockey, it resembled more of the 1988-1989 season than it did any other, because it was the first time since that year they were eliminated from the playoffs before the last game of the season. Consider that the year before '88-'89, they went to the Wales Conference Finals, and there’s practically a generation of this team’s fan base that never experienced what we all did last year. 

Yet there’s this incredibly renewed optimism so many are beginning to feel. Season tickets are up by nearly 2,000 this summer. The new coach, Peter DeBoer, finally gets a chance to work with talent. Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk will play their first full season together, barring any other freakish injuries like the one Parise had last year. Adam Larsson looks like he could be the next-best thing since Scott Niedermayer. 

And for that room of players, getting back to the playoffs won’t be enough. Winning a round or two won’t be enough. Winning the Cup is about the only thing that could make up for last year’s abysmal play. 

Don’t you think, just for a moment, that it has to bother Kovy that he’s only won a single playoff game in his career (one against the Flyers a few years back, none with the Thrashers, though he did play in one series where they were swept by the New York Rangers). 

With all the lure and craziness of playing in Newark, Parise has to be tired of not winning a championship, while always having to look up to the numerous banners that hang at the Prudential Center. 

And finally – so it seems – everyone who has been on this team longer than a year or two has to be content that perhaps … perhaps … DeBoer will be coach longer than two seasons? 

This is the year no expert will pick the Devils to win the Cup. There are so many other highly talented teams out there. Yet we don’t know how that chemistry will work in Philly. Repeating will be hard for Boston as it is for any National Hockey League team. And while there will be pressure to get back to the playoffs, not being a favourite to win it all will work in the Devils favour. 

And with that said, maybe, just maybe, this will be the year the Seven-Year Itch ends.