Since the 2005-06 season, parity’s been the buzzword in the NHL with nearly every team having a chance to win on a given night.  There are fewer and fewer ‘gimme’ games each season.  And yet, today’s President’s Day matinee against Ottawa looked like one of them.  Ottawa literally had an All-Star team on the shelf – forwards Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek as well as defensemen Erik Karlsson and Jared Cowan.  And goaltender Craig Anderson also got the day off.  For the formerly conference-leading Devils’ part, they were supposed to be angry and hungry after a blowout on the Island on Saturday night.

Yet, the Devils hit the ice with a loud thud this afternoon – just like Saturday night dominating the first twenty minutes and then dissapearing the rest of the game.  This time they were able to get a point (undeserved, really) with a 1-1 tie before losing in the shootout.

As the Devils did Friday in their last home game against the Flyers, they jumped out quickly with a goal when Stephen Gionta scored off a rebound from a Steve Bernier shot after just seventy-nine seconds.  Little did anyone realize that Gionta’s second goal of the season would be the Devils’ last this afternoon against Big Ben Bishop.  Bishop was having a good year in the AHL during the lockout, but hadn’t stood out in the NHL until today, when he stood tall in the first period (pun intended, being that Bishop’s listed at 6’7) with sixteen of his thirty saves.  Somewhat ominously the Devils failed to convert on back-to-back power plays despite putting nine pucks on the Denver-born Bishop during all that special teams time – which included a short five-on-three as well.

Actually the Devils had seen Bishop before…last season when he had a 33-save performance in a 1-0 Devils win last March.  Today, the offense fared no better – particuarly after the first period when the team seemed to shut it down effort-wise after outshooting the outmanned Sens 19-7 in the first period, they would be outshot 21-14 the rest of the game including 9-4 in the second period.  Yet, Ottawa’s puckluck was about as bad as its injury luck for most of the afternoon with Daniel Alfredsson missing an open net in the first period, among other chances they flubbed to go along with twenty-nine Martin Brodeur saves.  Pretty much the only noteworthy thing that happened in the second period wasn’t a good one, as Ryan Carter took a hit in the head and would not return, although it wasn’t immediately known if he suffered a concussion or not.

With Carter out and enforcer Krys Barch only playing 4:36, the Devils’ forward lines were thrown even more into flux.  Especially considering new acquisition Andrei Loikotonov was playing in his first game with the Devils after a semi-surprising demotion of Jacob Josefson over the weekend.  Josefson had regressed dramatically this season, perhaps letting his offensive struggles creep into his defensive game which was also going downhill.  Ironically it was Loikotonov that figured in Ottawa’s tying goal when a failed clearance gave Alfredsson a second chance to score – and he would not miss this time, beating Brodeur at 8:36.

Our turmoil up front isn’t even factoring into my main pet peeve – the ‘experimenting’ on defense.  Specifically restoring Henrik Tallinder to the lineup, at the expense of Mark Fayne for the second straight game.  Fayne was arguably the team’s best defenseman last year, and the team’s numbers with and without him this year are striking (sixteen goals allowed in the four games he’s missed including today, twenty-one allowed in the twelve he’s played).  Yes, he had two subpar games before being scratched on Long Island and I realize that you have to eventually play Tallinder to keep his value somewhat high, but come on now.  You can’t scratch Anton Volchenkov for a couple of games instead of Fayne, considering how bad the PK has been lately?  In a 48-game season you can’t afford to get too cute with how tight the standings are.

Yes, the Tallinder-Fayne swap didn’t hurt the team today – on the scoreboard anyway, though they certainly didn’t seem sharp defensively for the most part, even in the first period.  It did hurt the team Saturday though it was doubtful they were going to win on Long Island for a third time anyway, with John Tavares putting the team on his back that night.  Still, it seems a bit cavalier to randomly scratch an intregal part of the team for reasons beyond winning and perhaps indiciative that we’re back to taking a playoff spot for granted as an organization.  Sure, the hot early start gave us some wiggle room, but that’s all it is right now.  With every game being a potential three-point game and the standings saying tight for the forseeable future.

Granted, there is also the possibility that Fayne has a super-secret injury (why they wouldn’t just call it upper/lower body and be done with it if that was the case I’d have no idea) and he did miss two games with supposed arm troubles earlier this year.  If he is healthy though, enough is enough.  Something needs to be done about this defensive glut sooner rather than later.  Having eight defensemen has never made any sense to me, especially when your organizational strength is defense.  Especially while your forward core is in flux right now and you need to have more wiggle room to experiement there.  With the way Tallinder’s played for most of his tenure here, you already have seven defensemen better than him including Peter Harrold who’s not going to get a chance to play himself at this point.  You mean to tell me it’s that important to have Tallinder making $3+ million as an eighth defenseman over, say Alex Urbom?

Anyway, back to the recap of a game that I really could only listen to on the radio since unlike most of the sellout crowd at the Rock, I do have work on President’s Day.  Although I was able to follow it for much of the game, I somehow missed the meelee at the end of regulation where Patrik Elias and David Clarkson got involved with Chris Neil and Marc Methot, an altercation where the Devils got the short end of the stick with Clarkson and Neil getting thrown out with misconducts, and Elias serving a double-minor.  Although the PK managed to survive without disaster for once, losing both Clarkson and Elias for the majority of overtime compromised the Devils’ chances to win.  New Jersey didn’t even register a shot in the five-minute period, before the shootout commenced.

When Ilya Kovalchuk led off and failed to convert the Devils were in deep trouble after that, considering Kovy’s the only reliable shooter the Devils have in the skills competition this year (and you can’t expect him to be 9-11 again this year, or whatever insane percentage he was last year).  Brodeur did stop Alfredsson in the shootout but rookie Jakob Silfverburg beat Brodeur to give Ottawa the lead.  After Elias failed to convert, the final choice of ex-Sen Bobby Butler over Travis Zajac and Adam Henrique was a mild surprise although it’s not like any choice was going to be great there considering the centermen’s lack of success in the shootout.  Butler’s subpar attempt was foiled by Bishop and the Devils suffered their just result for twenty minutes of effort and forty-five minutes of coasting.