New Jersey Devils: It’s Time To Stop Blaming Steve Bernier

A conversation on Twitter brought to my attention that New Jersey Devils fans are still blaming one play for losing the 2012 Stanley Cup. It’s time to let Steve Bernier off the hook.

It was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen as a hockey fan. Because of the play itself, the brevity of the moment and the massively missed call directly before it, calling a major penalty on Steve Bernier when you missed the penalty eight seconds before against Stephen Gionta in a pivotal game six of the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals was a major mistake. However, blaming that for the New Jersey Devils losing the series is a stretch.

It’s been six years since that fateful play, yet fans are still upset. This tweet from a Devils fan got me thinking about this topic.

It’s clear that this game took years off the lives of Devils fans. They are still feeling the stress of that loss half a decade later. Despite the worst five minutes in Devils history, there were a lot of other reasons besides that penalty why the Devils lost.

I mean, let’s take the power play the immediately followed. The Devils allowed three goals during that one five minute stretch. It felt like the Devils felt like they got screwed, and they played distracted. Martin Brodeur allowed three goals during that stretch, and allowed six on 25 shots throughout the game. He needed to be better in a closeout game.

Ryan Carter and David Clarkson both got misconducts and were kicked out of the game when there was still a chance. That’s losing two thirds of the fourth line, which was carrying the team at times that postseason, and a 30-goal scorer in Clarkson.

The issues, however, preceded this game. Think about this, the Devils had the eighth seeded Los Angeles Kings in overtime twice at home in games one and two. In games one, a Devils team with Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk and Patrik Elias got their only goal of the game from Anton Volchenkov.

In game two, the fourth line was able to break Jonathan Quick, but the top six did nothing as they watched Jeff Carter put the Kings up 2-0 in the series with his overtime winner.

Literally, if the Devils win just one of those games at home, this is a completely different series. The Kings were never tested as they cruised to the Cup Finals. They lost one game during their run as Western Conference Champions. That one game came in game four of the Western Conference Finals, where they already had a 3-0 lead against the Phoenix Coyotes.

If the Devils could put them on their heels even a little bit to start the series, no one knows how they would react.

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The Devils weren’t out of their league like it looked in game three. They came back and won game four and five, becoming the first team since 1945 to force a game six in the Finals after going down 3-0. That showed they could play with these guys and had the talent to break the wall that was Quick.

The Bernier play was awful. It was a stupid hit. He was reacting to the referees missing a massive penalty on Stephen Gionta, when Jarrett Stoll away from the play hit Gionta into the boards. I mean, he was literally watching the play about to make a change when he was blindsided. Immediately after, Bernier goes racing towards Rob Scuderi. The play is still hard to watch today, but that doesn’t mean we should still blame Bernier for losing that series.

We should blame Parise and Kovalchuk. They scored one goal a piece, which Kovalchuk’s came in an empty net. There were times when the Devils really needed a goal, and two of the best scorers in the league could not provide it. I say, let’s stop blaming Bernier and start blaming Parise and Kovalchuk. We hate them already, anyway.