This marks the first time they have lost consecutive games this postseason, and the Devils are halfway up a mountain that only one other NHL team has climbed in the finals after losing the first three games.

Only the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs came back in a best-of-seven finals and won. Three years later, the Detroit Red Wings rallied from a 3-0 deficit to tie the series, but they lost Game 7 to Toronto. Those were the only other two teams to come back from 0-3 to force a Game 6 until the Devils.

''It's a difficult thing to get yourself ready for games like that,'' Brodeur said. ''Now it's been two (must-win) in a row. It takes a lot out of you but it is worth it. I think that's what the guys have been concentrating on all day, leaving nothing out there.

''... Now we are going to LA again to try to ruin the party again,'' the 40-year-old three-time Cup winner said. ''They are so close to winning the Stanley Cup that I am sure it is getting to them a little bit, having all these chances and not being able to capitalize a little bit. We're looking just to stay alive.''

The Kings haven't played terribly in losing the last two games, but the Devils have made the plays when it counted or gotten the breaks when they needed them.

Take Salvador's winner, his first goal in seven games. His shot from the left point was deflected right in front of Quick, hit off the chest of Kings defenseman Slava Voynov and rebounded into the net at 9:05 of the second period. It was the second time in this series that a point shot by a Devils defenseman hit off Voynov and caromed past his goaltender.

This one turned out to be a winner because Brodeur stood tall the rest of the way and had one shot hit off the goalpost and had a goal by Jarret Stoll on a second-period power play waved off because he hit the rebound with his stick too high.

Brodeur's biggest save might have been with 7.6 seconds to go in regulation when he stopped a slap shot by Mike Richards from the right circle.

The Kings, overtime winners in the first two games in the series in New Jersey, never got another shot and Brodeur took a patented victory swig of the Gatorade bottle on top of his net, as he has done for 18 years.