While the record says the Devils lost two straight games on their mini-road trip through Montreal and Boston, they still gained two points in the standings due to a pair of regulation ties.  Many thanks for that go to our amazing, seemingly ageless goalies – starting on Sunday with Martin Brodeur holding the fort in Montreal (shocker!) and giving the Devils a chance to come back from 3-1 to tie a game they had no business being in before a controversial penalty called on Andy Greene led to a Andrei Markov power play goal in overtime.  And tonight in Boston, Johan Hedberg played his first competitive game in nine months, and responded the way you have come to expect Moose to respond…with a professional, winning effort – making twenty-six saves and allowing only one goal against arguably the East’s top team.

As a team, the Devils played a ‘gutsy, gritty game’ tonight in the words of Pete DeBoer.  Given the caliber of opponent I’m apt to take the coach’s word on this one, since I was stuck going out to a terrible horror movie.  Showing his season last year was not a fluke (and increasing his own payday in FA by the game), David Clarkson‘s first-period power play goal gave the Devils a lead that would hold up until late in the third when Nathan Horton scored a goal that went off the skate of Henrik Tallinder and past Moose, preventing the Devils from getting an improbable 1-0 regulation win.  For all the kvetching about having top prospect Adam Larsson on the bench through the first five games, the defense has responded as a unit, only giving up eight goals during that span.

Still, the utter lack of goals from anyone not named Clarkson or Ilya Kovalchuk is why this team needs to flip one of its assets on D to help get another forward soon.  If our lack of scoring was crystalized at any point this season, it was during tonight’s shootout, which went six rounds.  After Kovalchuk, Patrik Elias, Travis Zajac and Clarkson predictably took the first four attempts, we were reduced to having Jacob Josefson and Marek Zidlicky take our final two shots.  Yes, the talented forward with no offensive touch to this point in his young career and a defenseman were our #5 and #6 shooters, after the only four shooters on our roster – aside from the injured Adam Henrique – who participated in the shootout last year.  Unless the defenseman’s name is Kris Letang (or Marek Malik) usually you have problems when you have defensemen taking shootout attempts.

Predictably, Kovalchuk was the only Devil to score – although the shootout didn’t proceed without controversy.  Boston’s Tuukka Rask tripped up Zajac on the third (and potential winning) attempt without getting a piece of the puck.  That’s something I’d literally never seen in a shootout before.  Obviously during regulation, that’s a penalty but maybe there’s no rule against the goalie tripping up a player in the skills competition.  Even before that, there was another moment of controversy when Tyler Seguin‘s first attempt on Moose was interrupted by a hot dog wrapper flying down from the stands and through the goal crease.  Seguin scored, but the officials had to call a do-over on that – another first for me watching a shootout!.  Ironically, Seguin did do the exact same move over again, and scored again…oh well.  Brad Marchand scored the shootout winner to give the Bruins the extra point – like they need it, as they’ve already stamped themselves as a front-runner in this young season.

At least the Devils managed to keep pace on top of the Atlantic, by getting their eighth point out of a possible ten, with their next matchup at home on Thursday against a suddenly hot Isles team who roasted Pittsburgh tonight after a tough loss in Winnipeg a couple of nights ago.  The Isles’ only regulation defeat after losing to us on Opening Night was in Boston a few days ago.

However, the Devils may have a couple of changes to their lineup Thursday – with Stefan Matteau‘s five-game tryout ending, there’s still no word as to whether he’ll be going back to juniors or not.  Given that he played less than ten minutes in every game so far, my guess is he won’t be here on Thursday – nor should he be.  You can’t burn a year on an ELC for a guy that’s going to be a role player at best.  He has talent and poise, he’ll be back soon enough.  Also, Henrique is scheduled to return within the next week, perhaps as soon as the Isles game.  Roster moves will have to be made both figuring out who replaces Matteau (the ‘unofficial’ member of the team Mathieu Darche), and sending current fill-in forward Matt Anderson down to make room for Henrique.

And there’s the not-so-insignificant matter of Larsson, who’s been told he’ll have a major role on this team, and can’t be allowed to stay in the press box indefinitely.  Larsson had his ups and downs last year, but he proved he can play in the league and his five-game playoff stint showed he belongs in an NHL lineup.  Granted, so do the defensemen currently in our lineup, but something’s gotta give soon.  Especially with our problems up front.  There’s only so long you can go with Kovalchuk, Clarkson and our amazing goalies masking our lack of offense.  In any case, it’ll be interesting to see what happens.