After a reprieve of sorts in Carolina on Friday with a rare four-goal outburst in the third period of a 5-2 win over the Canes, tonight’s ugly yet gritty effort against the Sabres was more the norm for the Devils over the last two seasons, but with a twist.  This time they actually won a game where they made the other team’s backup goaltender look great as Steve Bernier broke a scoreless tie with just forty-one seconds remaining in OT, firing a well-placed wrist shot past Jhonas Enroth and finally giving the home fans at the Rock something to cheer this week.  Enroth (and some shoddy finishing) had foiled the Devils throughout regulation with 23 stops but couldn’t stop the only shot he faced in overtime, as Bernier secured a desperately needed second point out of this game with just his second goal of the season.

Honestly there wasn’t really much to say about this game.  It gets old to say this but I thought in spite of the Devils’ lack of finish they were pretty good otherwise, holding the Sabres to just fifteen shots and killing off three power plays.  I wouldn’t say this was a total rocking chair game for Cory Schnieder, particuarly in the second period where there were a couple of hair-raising near misses by the Sabres in their best period of the night.  My big fear of this game coming into it was the Sabres’ two wins against the rival Leafs show they’re starting to take on the identity of new/old coach Ted Nolan.  Whatever you want to say about why he’s been out of the NHL for such long stretches at a time, hockey fans know his teams always come to play.  Hopefully for Brian’s sake the Sabres do the right thing and remove the ‘interim’ tag from Nolan sooner rather than later.

If we hadn’t given our best effort the result could have been very different.  It wasn’t exactly our best offensive execution though…then again this was our seventh game in eleven nights with trips to the West Coast and an overnighter in Carolina sandwiched around three home games this week.  Complicating matters tonight were Ryan Carter literally being TKO’ed by Marcus Foligno (son of Devils coach Mike Foligno ironically enough) on his first shift of the game and missing the rest of the contest due to ‘facial lacerations’.  With Cam Janssen playing his usual sub-five minute night (3:27 to be exact) and Damien Brunner being benched for the third period essentially the Devils were rolling three lines by the end of the night.  Thank goodness we won or I would have been livid over the fact that despite having Janssen in the lineup to be next to useless otherwise, it was Carter who took on what should have been Cam’s role as fighter and got thwomped in the process.

All of our defensemen played big minutes tonight too, with Andy Greene pacing the blueliners at 26:26 of icetime and Mark Fayne ranking last with 17:58.  Nearly eighteen minutes is still a good night’s work – on some teams, the #6 defenseman barely gets ten minutes a night, if that.  Interestingly Jon Merrill was in the lineup again for the third straight game, and got almost twenty-two minutes of icetime.  Part of me wonders if we’re showcasing him for a trade since it’s not like there’s neccesarily going to be room for him once Bryce Salvador and Adam Larsson come back.  The fact he’s played in the NHL for a week and doesn’t look out of place bodes well for our current and future depth on the blueline though.

Among other palace intrigue is the fact that suddenly Cory Schnieder has gotten two starts in a row playing both ends of this back-to-back in Carolina last night and here tonight, and now has three straight wins including this shutout.  Clearly Martin Brodeur is going to get the start in Montreal on Monday but all of a sudden the goaltending question is back up in the air now with Brodeur having lost three in a row and Schnieder winning three in a row.  I did bitterly text my sth friend who wasn’t at the game the following before overtime:

‘Too bad they used up their monthly quota of goals for Cory last night’ (referring to our 5-2 win in Carolina)

At least Bernier did manage to get one right when the team needed it the most.  I would not have wanted to go to another shootout with our horrendous record in them.  I’d be just fine with not seeing another shootout the rest of the season at this rate.  Despite a slow start to the season, Bernier’s still getting top six time over the likes of Michael Ryder (who suddenly can’t do the one thing he’s known for – hitting the net) and Brunner.  At least it’s better than last year when we were giving Stefan Matteau and the ghost of Alexei Ponikarovsky top-line time.  It would be nice if Brunner and Ryder got going but I doubt it’ll be with each other.  Having them as a line was predictably a trainwreck tonight – two individualistic players on one line is one too many.

Perhaps the most memorable thing from tonight’s game aside from the Bernier goal was what happened away from the play (see above) with Sabres captain Steve Ott looking like a fool trying to goad Adam Henrique into a fight – in the final minute of overtime – and he could only watch as Bernier scored.  Henrique and the Devils got the last laugh…literally.