Despite the split in points from this weekend’s games in Carolina (loss) and against the Jets at home (shootout win), at this point it feels far from satisfactory.  There are still a myriad of problems with this team, evidenced by the fact they couldn’t build on their come-from-behind win against the Sabres on Thursday, getting whipped in Carolina on Saturday night making third-string goalie Dan Ellis look like Martin Brodeur playing the puck and stopping it for much of the game.  After nine games of being scored on first, the Devils finally got the first two goals tonight and couldn’t build off that either, blowing the lead before the second period was over.

Pretty much the only thing the Devils can build on as a team right now is Johan Hedberg‘s individual performances on Thursday and Sunday.  Although I’ve been screaming and yelling at Pete DeBoer for letting Hedberg take the net by rote when he was giving up four goals a game with a sub .850 save percentage (not to mention playing a 39-year old goalie seven games in eleven days), Moose has come up big two of the last three games at least.  And Saturday he had little chance on any of those goals until the game was out of hand midway through the second period.

He needed to come up big because from what little I saw of tonight’s game, the merry-go-round defense gave up a ton of quality chances again.  Particularly after the Devils dominated the first period but could only escape with a 2-1 lead after Andy Greene tipped a Mark Stuart shot past Hedberg, and by the goaltender’s own admission he had to fight the ‘here we go again’ thoughts on another bad break going by him.  Truth be told, I’m tired of hearing about bad breaks though, especially considering the teams the Devils have been playing.  Not when David Clarkson hasn’t scored in a month, Travis Zajac has eight points in twenty-six games this season and the defense continues to brain-cramp such as Adam Larsson slipping and falling causing a two-on-one chance the other way that led to the tying goal by Evander Kane.

At least I do have to give the team credit for battling it out although it wasn’t pretty, it was their seventh game in eleven nights after all, and the night after a game in Carolina.  And after the power play has scored a couple goals this week, they had a ton of chances on their only opportunity in the first period but indiciative of the offense’s struggles they couldn’t put one puck on Ondrej Pavelec despite having about ten shots at the net.  Ironically although the CBGB line has been split apart the last few games, they continued to save our bacon tonight as Ryan Carter scored a pretty goal after a bad bounce off the boards went to Zajac, who threw the puck through the crease right to Carter and he turned around and fired a wrister past Pavelec at 8:47 to get the Devils on the board first, at last.  And just eighty-five seconds later, Ilya Kovalchuk sprang Stephen Gionta for a breakaway, and he beat Pavelec with a better one-on-one goal than I’ve seen from most of our shootout attempts this year.

Gionta at times catches too much crap from Devil fans so it’s always nice to see him produce.  Yes he should stay on the fourth line, and yes having a short forward penalty kill can be a problem at times, and has been a problem.  But he’s excellent in his role and has proven to be worthy of an NHL spot since last Spring.  Admittedly, another guy I’ve been on at times is Anton Volchenkov and he had one of his best games as a Devil tonight (and has been solid in general at least the last couple weeks).  During one shift on the penalty kill in the third period, he got hit with two seperate shots on the leg and in the back, and still managed to clear the puck despite limping around on the latter block.  I was worried he would be out for weeks after seeing him limp off, but he didn’t even miss a shift.

Other than the above guys I mentioned, I can’t think of too many others that really deserved the two points we wound up getting from tonight’s game.  Especially when we were moping around in the second period after that first goal, seemingly waiting for disaster to strike.  Which it did on the aformentioned goal by Kane at 17:19 of the second, his tenth of the season – seemingly all against the Devils in the last three weeks.  Fortunately the Devils picked it up after that but there were plenty of hairy moments where Moose had to make saves – one on a two-on-one, another with Dustin Byfuglien on the side of the net for an open shot.  At least getting to overtime ensured the Devils would still be in a playoff position by night’s end – amazing we’re even talking about this after the first twelve games of the season, but here we are squarely on the bubble.

I wanted a win in overtime at least, since we haven’t had a ‘true hockey’ win in over two weeks, dating back to when we beat the Caps in Washington on the 21st of February.  After a five-minute period where we were outshot 5-2, we were fortunate just to get to the shootout though.  For the second time in three games, Moose came up big in the skills competition stopping Blake Wheeler, Kane and Andrew Ladd in succession.  After Kovy got stopped on his first attempt (his golden stick from last year in the shootout has dissapeared) and Clarkson got stopped on his predictable one-trick move, Patrik Elias needed to score…which he did on a deke shot that he put through the five-hole, giving the Devils just enough margin to squeak out that all-important second point of the night.