Patrik Elias put together an epic 2012 season for the New Jersey Devils.
All New Jersey Devils fans know a great deal about Patrik Elias. He is one of the team’s all-time greatest players and the undisputed all-time best Devils forward. He is the all-time leading scorer in New Jersey Devils history. He has lots of career achievements including two Stanley Cups, 408 goals, 617 assists, and 1025 points in 1240 games. He is a borderline Hall of Famer and we all hope he makes it someday.
We hear about his epic record-breaking season in 2000-01. Some even mention the 81-point season of 2003-04. There is one thing people sometimes forget when it comes to Elias. He was there in 2012 when the Devils won the Eastern Conference had made it to the Stanley Cup Final. They were defeated by the Los Angeles Kings in six games, but that spring will forever be remembered in fondness for how much fun it was.
There were players that everyone remembers as the leaders of the team. Of course, Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk were the best players on the team, Martin Brodeur was in net, and Adam Henrique scored multiple series-winning goals in overtime. With that said, Elias rarely gets talked about for how good he was in this season and playoffs.
In 81 regular-season games that year, he had 26 goals and 52 assists for 78 points. That was good for second on the team in scoring. Then in the playoffs, he had five goals and three assists for eight points. That was good production in a somewhat depth role on the team. He usually is a pass-first type player but he scored some big goals in the playoffs that season. All the assists he had in the regular season made his statistics that much gaudier but his performance in all situations was awesome that year.
The Devils weren’t able to win Elias his third Cup but they weren’t able to finish it off. It was cool to see all-time greats like Elias and Brodeur be great that year and especially in the playoffs. Since then, Elias has retired and has his number hanging in the rafters of the Prudential Center. We are waiting to see if he will ever get into the Hall of Fame but for now, we can remember how good he was in 2012 when there was a lot of good going on around him.