You Lose Some, You Win Some | SUNDAYS WITH STAN

You win some and you lose some; or so the saying goes.
Then again, there are times when you actually lose some yet win some.
And, if that sounds funny to your ears, let me tell you I was there on March 14, 1988, in the Boston Garden when a Devils playoff loss turned into a franchise win. Here's how:
For starters, the 1987-88 Garden State skaters blossomed into the state's first Cinderella NHL team; this in the fifth year of its young life.

Jim Schoenfeld's stickhandlers had beaten out the Rangers for a final playoff berth on the last night of the regular season.
But that was only the first stop on the express track toward the Stanley Cup. Next, they were confronted by the first place Islanders led by Hall of Famer Denis Potvin and a cast of superstars in the opening playoff round.
The Isles were disposed of in six games, pushing the Devils up against the Washington Capitals. Here we had another melodrama with Jim Schoenfeld's skaters being a distinct underdog. (What else is new?)
The seven-game series began at Capital Center in Landover, Maryland and ended there as well. Another foe, another win. Cinderella was smiling on the Garden Staters.
Now, suddenly, the Devs found themselves just one series - or four wins - away from the final round. However, there was an impasse, so to speak: the mighty, Big, Bad Bruins.
Once again, New Jersey's stickhandlers opened the best-of-seven series on the road. Boston Garden was on Causeway Street in Beantown, not Easy Street for the Devils. But, to a man, the Visitors were somewhere to the left of daunted.
Energy was supplied by captain Kirk Muller, energetic winger Pat Verbeek, tough defender Ken Daneyko and 1988 Team Canada Olympic goalie Sean Burke.
"We were on a roll," Burke remembered, "and we felt that we could maintain the momentum even though Boston was the favorite. I knew that the boys were counting on me, and I certainly didn't want to let them down."
He didn't.
If anything, Burke, more than any Devil, displayed the resiliency that enabled them to reach and seventh and deciding match. And, although he lost the opener at Boston "Gah-den," 5-3, he rebounded in Game 2 with a 3-2 edge.
Likewise, Sean turned sieve in the series first game at The Meadowlands. The final score, 6-1, for Boston was overshadowed by the now notorious post-game clash between Schoenfeld and referee Don Koharski.
Schony's closing tirade - "Have another donut; have another donut!" - has joined a list of infamous NHL put-downs. It also resulted in an NHL zebra walkout before Game 4 in which NHL off-ice officials replaced the league's appointed referee and linesmen.
New Jersey's own Vin Godleski was one of the impressed trio along with his Devils sidekick Paul MacInnis and Islanders off-ice rep, Jim Sullivan.
The trio handled the rough and tumble game with professionalism and the Devils came out on top, 3-1. But that hardly was the end of mayhem.
When NHL President John Ziegler returned to his desk, he suspended Schoenfeld for one game. With Schony out, GM Lou Lamoriello went behind the bench at Boston Garden.
Once again, Burke and his buddies were overwhelmed, 7-1, yet the Devils were neither bowed nor frustrated. They returned home and slapped down Boston, 6-3, setting up a Game 7 that would send one team to the Cup Final.
"Not only were we thinking about getting to the fourth round," Daneyko recalled, "but we knew that if we made it, chances were we'd face Wayne Gretzky and Oilers."
More than that - win or lose in the Final - just making it that far would have knighted the Devils as one of the NHL's truly elite teams - whether Don Koharski was officiating Game 7 or not; which he was!
And for one five-second episode early in the game, it appeared that New Jersey was on the road to victory.
As a matter of fact, as one who covered every game of the series for Devils TV on SportsChannel, I'm still shaking my head in disbelief over Patty Verbeek's missed chance at lifting his club into a 1-0 lead.
New Jersey's Emmy Award-winning producer George Falkowski worked for the New England Sports Network at the time and viewed the Verbeek adventure as I did at The Gah-den.
"The Verbeek play started with Kirk Muller in the Bruins end and with Boston having only one defenseman back," Falkowski recalled. "Kirk faked a pass to Verbeek and shot the puck low.
"Reggie Lemelin, the Bruins goalie, flashed out his right skate and stopped the puck, but sent it back to his right, spinning like a top on its edge. It went right to Verbeek who one-timed it toward the open net."
Like just about everyone in the vast audience, I thought the Devils had the first goal of the game. So did Verbeek who began to raise his stick in celebration.
Error!
Falkowski: "Patty didn't catch the rolling puck cleanly. Meanwhile, Lemelin, who never left his feet, dove across the crease in desperation and made a backhand stab of the fluttering shot."
So, astonishing was Lemelin's save that veteran Bruins broadcaster Fred Cusick started to say, "Score!" but changed and instead shouted, "SAVE BY LEMELIN!"
"Nobody could believe it; least of all Verbeek," Falkowski added
"Well," said Lemelin when I asked him to recall the save, "it was one of the greatest saves I ever made in my career. Maybe the greatest."
I certainly think so and, I imagine that Verbeek, wherever he might be, would agree with all of us who were shocked at what we were witnessing. So, let's recapitulate; painful as it may be.
Verbeek, along with Johnny MacLean, Kirk Muller and Mark Johnson, ranked among New Jersey's most effective sharpshooters. Patty was, in effect, a "Young Reliable" among the club's growing number of aces.
Get him the puck within 20 feet of the net and chances were good that he'd beat some of the NHL's rubber-stoppers.
And there he was in the best possible scoring formation all alone with Lemelin at his mercy.
I vividly remember saying to myself, "Score now, Patty, and you guys will win!"
Nor was the save on Verbeek, Lemelin's only "stolen" save. Reggie also made a huge stop on Devils defenseman Tom Kurvers to keep Boston in a game in which Boston was being outplayed.
"It was a tight game," said the Bruins rookie Craig Janney who, along with Bob Joyce, had joined the Bruins after playing in the 1988 Olympics, Janney for Uncle Sam and Joyce for Team Canada. "I'll always remember that seventh game with Jersey.
"Our coach, Terry O'Reilly, grabbed me and Bobby before the game and said, 'You never know - this could be your last chance ever to get to the Finals'!"
Some on the New Jersey bench may have been thinking the same thing when Janney joined the Bruins first period power play. New Jersey's Mark Johnson had been penalized for hooking at 8:09 with the score still zip-zip.
The Bruins seized the moment and exactly 50 seconds after Johnson had been sin-binned, Janney beat Burke and heads dropped on the Visitors' bench. Worse still, by 2:57 of the middle period, the score had soared to 3-0 for Boston.
While the capacity crowd of 13,909 cheered and Devils heads drooped once the third red light had flashed for the home club, Schony exhorted his troops that the game was far from over.
"My club had always been resilient in this playoff year," coach Jim later would relate. "I wanted my guys to know that they still could come back."
And they did.
At 15:28 of the second frame, Johnny MacLean converted a Doug Sulliman feed and now it was 3-1 - which was the way the second period ended. And when the third period began, the Devils were like ferrets on the spoor of an elusive puck.
This time Kirk Muller picked up the scent and at 3:41 he beat Lemelin to make it a mere one-goal game. With plenty of time at their disposal, Schony's lads penetrated the Boston barricades for eight minutes after the Muller score, but to no avail.
Now the puck was in the New Jersey zone, being nurtured on Ken Daneyko's stick. With Argus eyes, Janney sized up the Devils defenseman and within seconds the curtain would drop on New Jersey's playoff dream.
Janney: "Daneyko tried a clearing pass and I 'stole' it. This was a quick turnover and I think it caught (goalie) Burke off guard. He was out a little and I saw him shorten up on his stick.
"I thought he might poke at the puck, so I took a step in front, gave him a little deke and put it by him. I'll never forget the pressure and the crowd. I was so caught up in the emotion."
So were the Devils who seemed so deflated by the sudden downward turn of events. Even though Janney's goal was scored at 12:05 and there was more than seven minutes remaining on the clock, the two-goal deficit felt to the Jerseyites as if they were 20 goals down.
Seizing the opportunity, Boston's Cam Neely and Ken Linseman ended the Devils' challenge with a pair of late red lights to wrap up the 6-2 Boston triumph.
While the ending was hard on the hearts of Garden State hockey fans, there was so much good to be taken from the loss in Game 7. By now the Devils had Met Area bragging rights and had become media darlings.
As for Patty Verbeek's near-thing, It reminds The Maven of a memorable line from John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, Maud Muller:
For all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these -
it might have been!