After Sunday’s blowout loss in Yankee Stadium I had a great (irrational?) fear that it would be a loss that could send our season spiraling out of control, much like blowing a game on Opening Night in 2010 sent our fragile confidence level after a bad second half and playoffs the previous season careening off a cliff.  Especially with the Blues looming on the schedule Tuesday, I figured a trip to St. Louis wouldn’t be a happy one for us after our fluke blowout win over them last week.  As it turned out though, the 3-0 loss was the least of our concerns after that game as cracks have started turning up everywhere in the good ship lollipop that was previously the Devils’ locker room.

One flashpoint is – predictably – Martin Brodeur‘s recent lack of playing time, which is causing the legend a Brett Favre-type angst, despite the fact his play compared to Cory Schnieder‘s play really hasn’t merited more starts this month than he’s gotten.  However, the level to which Brodeur has taken his frustrations the last seventy-two hours is alarming, to the point where he openly wondered about asking for a trade when talking with beat writers this week.

“It’s within the team’s rights to try and make themselves better. The fact is, I have the luxury to decide what I want to do. I hope if he (Lamoriello) is able to help the team, he’ll ask, regardless of what it is. It’s definitely something that is possible.”

“I’m open to anything,” Brodeur told me. “I just want to play. So, like I said in Toronto, if there’s a better situation for me, I’ll take it. If it’s here or somewhere else, it doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t think so unless in the next three weeks it goes worse than (it is),” Brodeur said of whether he’d ask for a trade. “We’ll see. But I don’t think I will ask.”

While to a certain extent it almost seems as if Marty’s thinking out loud here (what does he mean by it getting worse, the team’s situation in the standings or his own playing time?), it’s unseemly for him to be popping off when he’s not playing well and the team’s in a desperate fight to remain in the playoff hunt, and complaining that he’s not used to being a backup and going long stretches without playing.  If he wants to play next season that’s his business and ultimately it might be best for both team and player to move on.  However if he thinks teams are going to beat down his door to have a declining 41-year old legend play 60 games he needs a reality check.  His save percentages from 2006-2010 were still elite-level (.922, .920, .916 and .916) but his save percentages in the last four years have dipped dramatically (.903, .908, .901 and .899) with the .908 and a great playoff performance coming two years ago on the best team the Devils have had in a decade.

Yes, there’s something to be said for loyalty to a guy who in the prime of his career left millions on the table and has given us high-quality goaltending for two decades, and it’s a very tricky thing trying to make Cory the #1 while not appearing to shove Marty out the door…but does that loyalty have to come at the expense of this year’s team on the ice, or potentially compromise re-signing Schnieder this offseason?  Not to mention his teammates can’t be thrilled that he leaves them out to dry in the media by pointing out deflections and mistakes that were made in front of him when his own play’s deteriorated, whereas Cory blames everything on himself practically to a fault.  I don’t want this to turn into a bash Marty post, obviously when the day comes he’s no longer a Devil we’ll all raise a glass and toast the good times, and again when he has his number retired and again when he goes into the Hall of Fame.  Time always marches on though, and time waits for nobody – whatever your name is or accomplishments are.

It’s not as if Marty’s the only Devil to voice public frustrations this week either.  Before Sunday’s game, fellow forty-something legend Jaromir Jagr strongly endorsed having Jacob Josefson play wing on his line after Pete DeBoer finally restored the young Swede to the lineup against the Caps last Friday and vowed to ‘do the maximum’ to keep him on the line.

“I thought he was one of the best players on the ice,” Jagr said. “He didn’t have much ice time, but every time he was on the ice he creates plays.”

“Our line didn’t play very much,” Jagr said. “Hopefully, we can get better and better every game. He’s a good player. People don’t give him enough credit. He’s a lot better than people think.”

Now, who pray tell would he be talking about when he says Josefson isn’t ‘getting enough credit’?  It couldn’t be our esteemed coaching staff who caps his icetime at nine minutes a night most games, plays him sparingly and with pluggers most of the time when he does play, could it?  Hmmm. For the record, I haven’t always been a big believer in Josefson either but to hear such a strong recommendation from Jagr made me smile and gave me hope we might actually get something out of the former first-rounder, if he was actually given a fair chance this time.  So what happened Sunday?  Another sub-ten minute game where he was removed from the line after one lousy period followed by another benching tonight.  Never has GM Lou Lamoriello‘s ‘status quo’ meme seemed more depressingly true.

Both Jagr and Patrik Elias expressed frustration with the constant line-shifting in recent days, with Elias also taking certain unnamed teammates to task for being selfish and trying to do everything themselves.  Perhaps one of Elias’s targets was Eric Gelinas, who’s caused no fewer than three two-on-ones the other way by ill-timed pinches in the last two games alone. While you can’t help but like Gelinas’s offensive talent, it would be nice if he at least tried to play defense once in a while. Apparently he went to the Sheldon Souray school of hockey though, where Souray just wanted to use his big slapshot and occasionally lay a hit on someone when he was within range. Gelinas is going down that same path, and he’s gotten his own ‘benching’ tonight, being the seventh D as DeBoer yet again goes with the 11-7 split.  And you can live with a Souray type, problem is the Devils have another offensive D that’s suspect in his own end in Marek Zidlicky and a defensive D that’s been struggling mightily lately in captain Bryce Salvador.

Of course Pete won’t bench his precious vets, especially team mascot Stephen Gionta who is now playing on the second scoring line between Elias and Damien Brunner.  He won’t play Josefson or Andrei Loiktionov on the fourth line because they’re ill-suited for the role but he will put Gionta in a role he’s ill-suited for as a scoring center, and most likely double-shift him to boot at times since once again we’re only playing three centers.  And god forbid we bench fellow CBGB member Steve Bernier who has immunity from benching in spite of his -15 on the season, compared to Loiktionov’s +1.  And yet Loiktionov’s the one that gets razzed for bad defense.

Pete’s head-scratching lineup decisions have been there all year but the public carping and frustration clearly evident in the closing minutes on Tuesday night is something else.  In spite of all the losing the last couple years, the team’s largely stayed united until recently.  Time is running out and the team knows it, as well as Pete who sounded like a beaten man in Tuesday’s postgame.  This two-game stretch in Dallas tonight and Nashville tomorrow is vital to the team’s chances of staying alive in the playoff hunt, but not only that you have to believe jobs are on the line starting with Pete’s.  When has a Lamoriello team missed the playoffs two straight years?  Never, and that’s in 27 years of GM’ing.  Right now it looks increasingly likely that’ll happen for the first time this year and unconscionably Lou hasn’t made a move yet either to add a scoring winger, shed a defenseman or just do something, anything to shake things up.  The old Lou who fired coaches in first place would never have stood for half this nonsense.  With five vital games before the Olympic break and seven before the trade deadline, this organization needs to take a long, hard look at itself in the mirror and soon.