updated 11:04 p.m. ET April 15, 2009

NEWARK, N.J. - Brent Sutter and the New Jersey Devils have been saying for the past week that their late-season swoon wasn’t going to be another prelude to an early exit from the playoffs.

If the first game of the postseason was an indication, the Devils will hang around for a while this spring.

Zach Parise and Jamie Langenbrunner each had a goal and an assist and the Devils dominated from start to finish with a 4-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes in the opening game of their best-of-seven first-round playoffs series Wednesday night.

“It’s step one,” Parise said. “It’s going to be a long series. You’ve got the start somewhere and the effort was there from everybody. It was a good way for us to start.”

Last year, the Devils went 4-5-1 down the stretch and we eliminated by the Rangers in five games in the opening round, losing all three games at home.

“Tonight was a good example of how we feel we are able to play,” Martin Brodeur said after coming within roughly 11 minutes of tying Patrick Roy’s record for career playoff shutouts.

“They’ll adjust and try to do something different in Game 2 (Friday) but I liked the way we came out, the energy and the crowd was great,” the NHL’s leader in career regular-season wins added. “Finally, we performed well in front of them. In the playoffs last year, they didn’t have much to cheer about.”

Slideshow   Devil of a goalie New Jersey's Martin Brodeur, the winningest netminder in NHL history.

Defenseman Mike Mottau scored a rare goal late in the first period, Parise and Patrik Elias tallied in the second period and Langenbrunner added one in the third for New Jersey, which won four of its final five games after a season-high six-game losing streak.

“Toward the end of the season we were getting back to the way we needed to play,” Parise said. “All around, it was a good team game by us. Right away we did a good job of using the crowd, the excitement in the building and sustaining that the whole game. We did a good job of pressuring tonight.”

Brodeur, who set the regular-season record for NHL career wins last month, was closing in on his 23rd career playoff shutout when Ray Whitney scored on a rebound. He finished with 18 saves in winning for the 96th time in the postseason.

The playoff appearance was the first for Carolina since they won the Stanley Cup in 2006, and the Hurricanes played as if they will not be around long. Cam Ward kept them in the game, making 34 saves.

“I guess you scratch your head a little bit, knowing it’s a playoff game,” defenseman Tim Gleason said after the Hurricanes played a bad game after ending the season as one of the league’s hottest teams. “It’s one of those things, they came ready to play and we fell behind early. Friday night we have to come in ready to play at the drop of the puck.”

The Devils outshot the Hurricanes 15-7 in the first period but they didn’t score until Ward made a mistake. The goaltender, who posted a 19-7-2 mark in his final 28 starts, had the puck behind his net late in the period and elected to try to clear it himself off the sideboards.

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