I was gonna recap this game last night, but I really couldn’t think of anything to say other than the obvious.  For a rare occasion during this losing malaise of death, the Devils played sixty minutes with both intensity and crispness.  Against arguably the top team in the conference now with the Penguins’ injury issues (and the Bruins’ own trade deadline deal for Jaromir Jagr), the Devils honestly dominated the game for the most part. Granted, the 40-26 shot difference wasn’t always indicative of the quality of chances, but Danius Zubrus and David Clarkson also hit posts and those didn’t even count as shots.  We held the Bruins to one fluke goal defensively – a pass from Brad Marchand that was redirected in off the skate of Jagr early in the second period, and gave them few chances throughout.

In short, we did everything you could reasonably expect out of a hockey game…except score, and win.

While it’s impossible to have a beef with the Devils 1-0 loss last night in terms of effort, facts are facts.  We lost yet again (only seven wins in our last twenty-five games, just four in regulation), and the regulation loss punted us out of the top eight for only the second time this season.  Almost as bad as the Rangers and Islanders passing us is the fact that the Flyers have come back from the dead to win four straight and pull to within two points themselves.  More and more it seems like the die is cast – now four Atlantic teams are going to be fighting for the last two spots in the playoffs.  Especially with Winnipeg’s collapse and the Caps’ surge seemingly handing the Southleast to a Caps team that was once in the crypt.

Thing is, as Steve Cangelosi pointed out in the postgame the Devils still control their own destiny for the moment due to the fact we have a game in hand on the Islanders and are only one point behind.  But barely, since we almost certainly won’t have the regulation wins tiebreaker on anyone when it’s all said and done.  And our three combined games remaining against the Flyers and Rangers are all in enemy territory during the final week and a half of the season.  A more sobering reality was illuminated by writer Tom Gulutti, who points out the Devils don’t have a single win against a team currently in the top eight since the last week of February when we beat the Caps (and they were struggling then).

I want to focus on the positive, I really do.  Time’s run out for moral victories though.  I saw in a couple different places people calling this the ‘best loss of the season’.  Are you freaking kidding me?  There is no such thing is a best loss at this point, with the position we’re in.  Especially given the fact this team still hasn’t won a game since losing Ilya Kovalchuk nearly two weeks ago.  Unless perhaps it’s a one-point loss against a good team you’re not competing with for a spot (say, the Ottawa game last Monday).  Eventually however, the Devils need to start getting wins again, and fast.  At about the halfway point – the last time the Devils fell out of the top eight – I guesstimated the Devils needed to go 14-7-1 to be assured of a spot.  With results since then, that number’s gone to 8-2-1 in our last eleven.  That might wind up being a touch high, but not by much considering the fact the Isles, Rangers and Flyers are all surging while we can’t get out of our own way.

And at this point, there are only eleven games left to save the ship from going down in 2013.  I can’t accuse coach Pete DeBoer of not recognizing the gravity of the situation, calling early first-period timeouts to keep games from getting away early against Ottawa and the Isles, or calling a final-minute timeout in the second period after an icing to prevent a potentially crushing second goal against.  Although DeBoer hasn’t gone off on the team publicly just yet, he has hinted once or twice that maybe the players aren’t thinking of this as a stretch run just yet.  Normally at the 35-40 game mark you’re thinking about the All-Star game instead of the playoff push.  I can’t accuse the players of not showing intensity last night though.  It was there, unlike the first period on Monday night.

Our final reinforcement from the outside is arriving on Saturday after Steve Sullivan took his physical in New Jersey yesterday.  I’m at a loss to figure out how the Rangers could get their players in from Columbus literally the day of the trade hours before their game against Pittsburgh at MSG but we have to wait three days to see Sully but whatever.  Although Lou hasn’t done anything drastic the way he has in other years with the team struggling I can’t accuse him of not recognizing reality considering all the acquisitions we have made attempting to strengthen a flawed forward core.  While teams paid premiums on deadline day and just before for potential improvements, Lou acquired Andrei Loiktionov, Matt D’Agostini, Tom Kostopolous and Sullivan all on the cheap (none for higher than a fifth-round pick).

It would have been nice if Lou could have shed a defenseman at the deadline, but last night’s an example of what you get when you have eight defensemen around and many are older and making huge salaries.  With Peter Harrold playing up front to give Kostopolous a night off after his knockout loss on Monday night, we iced seven defensemen…and only 2011 #4 overall Adam Larsson was sitting in the press box.  At this point I’m really starting to think it would have been better for all parties if Larsson had just stayed in the AHL the whole season.  As bad as that would have been at least he could have gotten steady time without worrying about being yanked out of the lineup after every little mistake.  Same goes for Mark Fayne and our other defensemen.  Having only seven instead of eight – with the eighth still available in the AHL – would have made a world of difference in not having to rotate guys in and out and off of pairings as much.

What’s done is done at this point though, and we only have eleven games left to save 2013.  It seems apparent that Martin Brodeur‘s going to play them all until the ship is either saved or goes down with only two back-to-backs remaining.  One of the back-to-backs is this weekend but with the light schedule before and after (three games in our next ten days after this Sunday) I’d bet on Pete going to the wall with Marty now.  And at this point that’s fine with me, although hopefully he can work out his rust sooner rather than later.  He wasn’t tested all that much last night but couldn’t exactly be faulted on the goal against.

At this point we just gotta start making progress one game at a time.  No worse than three points in these next two games (home against the Leafs, at Buffalo) will do and preferably all four with what’s coming up on our schedule after that.  I’m at the Jim Mora point though when thinking about the playoffs.  ‘PLAYOFFS?!  Don’t talk to me about playoffs!  I just want to win a game…any game’.