N.H.L. Playoffs - Game 7 Is in Devils" DNA NEWARK - Adam Henrique, the Devils" superb rookie forward, was flipping through the channels Wednesday morning when hockey highlights compelled him to set down his remote control. Best he could tell, they were from a Game 7 - but from when, he wondered. The Devils were playing the Rangers, and the deciding goal came in overtime, on a wraparound by Stephane Matteau. "Oh my God," said Henrique, when told about the epic 1994 Eastern Conference finals. I was 4 years old. As Henrique, 22, prepares for his first N.H.L. Game 7 on Thursday night, it soothes him to know that the Devils" goalie against the Florida Panthers in Sunrise, Fla., will be the same as that night at Madison Square Garden 18 years ago, in a memorable game that the Rangers won. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only one goalie (Patrick Roy, 13) has started more Game 7s than Martin Brodeur, who, barring anything unforeseen, will start his 10th. Of the previous nine, Brodeur won five, including a shutout against Anaheim to secure the Stanley Cup in 2003. "I remember the ones that I want to remember," Brodeur said, laughing. Etched in his memory are his first Game 7, a victory against Buffalo in the 1994 conference quarterfinals that came two nights after a quadruple-overtime loss, and the Devils" win over Philadelphia in the 2000 conference finals, when Patrik Elias scored with less than three minutes left to help them overcome a three-games-to-one deficit. The victory that might be most relevant to their current predicament came in 2003, when the Devils defeated the Senators in Ottawa to advance to the Stanley Cup finals. At first, Brodeur did not recall the details. ("Was that a good one? Yeah, that was a good one.") But when he did, he mentioned the sense of comfort that exists when playing a decisive game on the road, where distractions are limited. "I don't think you have to deal with the outside world as much," Brodeur said. And if they do, so be it. It is better than the alternative, which they avoided in a 3-2 overtime victory Tuesday night by adhering to their formula for success: relentless forechecking, firing a lot of shots (42) and staying disciplined. Unlike in their Game 5 debacle, when they committed six penalties and, in the words of Travis Zajac, who scored the winning goal in Game 6, were "outworked all over the ice," the Devils took but one penalty. "We talked about learning from our mistakes," Coach Peter DeBoer said. That idea applies on a broader scale, too. The Devils" most recent Game 7, a defeat to Carolina in the 2009 conference quarterfinals, still resonates among some of the eight holdovers from that team, a group that includes Elias, David Clarkson and Dainius Zubrus. The captain Zach Parise, when asked Wednesday, was not interested in reliving the details, how they lost in regulation despite holding a lead with 80 seconds remaining in the third period. As for Brodeur, who gave up the winning goal with 31.7 seconds left, he merely smiled and said, "I knew someone was going to bring that up." Brodeur's opportunity for redemption could come against his backup that night, Scott Clemmensen, who would start a second consecutive game if Jose Theodore, who missed Game 6 with a lower-body injury, is unable to play. Florida's goalie seemed of less concern to the Devils than the unfamiliar - and late - start time of 8:30 p.m. Eastern and what DeBoer, in a rare public moment of dissent, perceived as the Panthers" undeserved home-ice advantage. Despite amassing 94 points to the Devils" 102, Florida earned a higher seed because it won its division. "When you finish 7 or 8 points above a team in the standings and you have to play Game 7 in their building, that's not always easy to swallow," DeBoer said. But that's how the N.H.L. works. DeBoer's mood lightened as he reflected on his last Game 7 experience, four years and two coaching jobs ago, when his Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League won the championship in 2008 after nearly blowing a three-games-to-none lead. The final score escaped him, but the feeling of elation did not. The stakes are considerably higher Thursday night, as Henrique has already come to discern. Asked whether he felt excited or nervous on the eve of the biggest game of his young career - a game in which he could deliver a Matteau moment of his own - Henrique shrugged. "Guess we'll wait and see," Henrique said.