Devils Make Adjustments, Keeping Rangers Off Guard Zach Parise, the Devils" forward and captain, is not exactly a model of composure on the ice. He chases after rolling pucks as if they just fell out of his wallet, and he raps at rebounds so hard that he looks as if he is trying to drive the puck clean through a goaltender's pads. He was on the ice for three goals Monday in a 4-1 win over the Rangers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals. Even though he scored twice, he was most jubilant after feeding Travis Zajac for a goal off a Rangers" breakdown and a two-on-one rush, hunting Zajac down to hug him. It was a good day for Parise and the Devils, who tied the best-of-seven series at two games apiece. But he has had bad days, too - like Saturday, when Henrik Lundqvist shut out the Devils. Parise did not grant interviews because he did not want to say anything he would regret. "You're going to go through some great times and you're going to go through some times where you can't allow yourself to get frustrated," Parise said on a conference call Tuesday. And we've done a good job of that. We do a good job after we lose a game of making adjustments and responding and rebounding. That goes to having composure on the ice, playing the game, playing with composure with the puck. He added: "The coaches do a good job making sure we're prepared. And we've said that before. But it's the truth. If things don't work, we make adjustments to do things differently. Although any series can pivot on one shift, the Devils are outwitting the Rangers. After falling behind Monday, 3-0, Rangers forward Mike Rupp sucker-punched Martin Brodeur, leading to a larger scuffle and angry words between the two head coaches. This is exactly the way the Devils want to play. They will respond when goaded - the rookie Adam Henrique fought Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh after being crosschecked - but the Devils" game is to get their opponents off their game. "You don't like to see a play where your goalie is taking a sucker punch, but now is not the time of the season to be responding to it," Devils defenseman Bryce Salvador said. Potentially, maybe they're getting frustrated. And so we're really just focusing on playing between the whistles, and that's where we've been having success. The Devils have been shut out twice in the series - and responded with two victories. They lost the opener of their conference semifinal in overtime to the Philadelphia Flyers, but won four straight. Facing elimination against the Florida Panthers in the opening series, they won twice, both in overtime. Parise had not scored in five games before Monday, but he pounded in the rebound of Ilya Kovalchuk's power-play slap shot, then swept in an empty-net goal to punctuate the victory. "I've said all year he's the heartbeat of our team," Devils Coach Peter DeBoer said Tuesday. And I can't describe it any better than that. DeBoer moved Kovalchuk off the Devils" top line with Zajac and Parise, replacing him with Dainius Zubrus. He does not have Kovalchuk's scoring touch, but he is big and physical. A steal by Zubrus led to Zajac's goal. The Devils" forwards like to think of themselves as interchangeable. The critical component, DeBoer said Tuesday, was for the four forward lines, no matter who was on them, to keep playing the same way. "I think we're really organized," Brodeur said. I think everybody understood what the coach wants us to do exactly. And I think guys are working really hard at it within the games, and regardless of the outcomes, it doesn't seem to really rattle us too much. We just go out and play the same way, over and over. Parise, 27, who stands to become an unrestricted free agent in the off-season, has become a strong advocate of DeBoer's studied approach to the game. Parise happened to notice DeBoer trading angry words with Rangers Coach John Tortorella after Rupp punched Brodeur on Monday. "When things have gone good or bad, he's always done a really good job of keeping everything even keel," Parise said of DeBoer. I don't know if something just happened to push him over the edge last night. That's fine with us. We know that he cares about us and cares about the team.