http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suu_pGS_AmI
Describing last night’s game against the Oilers as a must win for the Devils wasn’t too far from the truth, considering we were five points out of a playoff spot and facing the worst team in the West at home after a three-day layoff. Not to mention we only had four games left until the trade deadline to make up ground in the standings before Lou Lamoriello determines whether we’re a buyer or seller. As usual nothing came easy for New Jersey last night, and also as usual we blew a lead (though this time quickly in the first period) to get taken into overtime. However, goals from unlikely sources – rookie Jon Merrill and fourth-liner Andrei Loiktionov – and another sterling performance from Cory Schnieder eventually carried the Devils home with a 2-1 win in OT that pulled New Jersey to within three points of the Flyers for the final automatic playoff spot in the Metro.
Merrill’s overall game was both a source of pride for coach Pete DeBoer – who called the 22-year old ‘maybe the best defenseman tonight through sixty minutes’ – and consternation when he was asked a seemingly innocuous question about whether Merrill was playing it safe earlier in the season (something the rookie himself admitted to) DeBoer snapped back, ‘What do you mean safe…because he’s not going end-to-end?’ and then continued on:
“He’s here because he’s playing smart and he’s picking his spots,” DeBoer said. “He’s not playing safe. He’s a smart defenseman that is picking his spots when to move to puck, when to join the rush. That’s what being an NHL defenseman is. It’s not standing there going end to end every shift.”
Whatever the reason Merrill does have the coach’s trust, becoming one of the few younger players that hasn’t been chained to the doghouse yet under this coach although he was benched for a couple of games last month. Still, DeBoer never gave him the Loiktionov treatment, which was another source of mini-contreversy in the postgame. Loiktionov’s eight whole minutes of icetime was doubly puzzling because he scored the Devils’ only goal in regulation – although it took an earth-shattering occurence of Bryce Salvador actually making a nice feed to the open Russian in front for an easy tap-in goal. Of course his time on the ‘first’ line didn’t last too much longer after that, and DeBoer even had Stephen Gionta centering Jaromir Jagr and Patrik Elias at different times during the game.
Predictably the Devils struggled to score again in spite of the line shifts and machinations, but the one positive constant in the last month has been Schnieder. If anything’s become obvious these last few weeks, it’s that if the Devils are going to make the playoffs it’s going to be on the back of #35. With no offense up front outside of an increasingly testy Jagr, and diminishing options on the blueline without Eric Gelinas, the offense isn’t going to win too many games without good goaltending. For the second consecutive weekend Cory’s starting both ends of a back-to-back, ending any debate on who the #1 is right now. Not only is he getting most of the starts, but he’s making the most out of them going 7-2-4 in his last 13 games with a 1.43 GAA and .945 save percentage. Although he earned the game’s second star last night behind Merrill, in many ways he probably had an underrated performance. Though he didn’t face a lot of shots early, he was forced to make some beauts on one-timers by Sam Gagner and Andrew Ference in the first period before Loiktionov broke the ice and got the Devils on the board against old buddy Ilya Bryzgalov.
Cory’s only blemish last night could hardly be blamed on him as Andy Greene got caught up ice leading to a 2-on-1 the other way, with Nail Yakupov sneaking a pass underneath the stick of Mark Fayne for an easy tap-in goal by Taylor Hall. Hall’s goal came just twenty-nine seconds after Loiktonov’s goal at 11:01 of the first. So at least they didn’t wait until the final minute to blow a lead last night. In fact those two goals would be the only ones of regulation though the Devils hit two more posts last night, bringing their total to five for the week – with another game left in Washington tonight. And Ryane Clowe shanked yet another breakaway in the second period, bringing back visions of the OT miss in Nashville, while the Devils survived some hair-raising moments of their own, particularly in the final minute where it looked like deja vu all over again with the Oilers bringing pressure. Fortunately, the Devils did not find a way to blow both points in the final minute this time and went to OT, setting up Merrill’s winner with good boardwork from Adam Henrique to win the puck and Michael Ryder to get the puck to a wide-open Merrill, who fired a rocket past Bryzgalov showing the poise of a veteran goalscorer as opposed to a guy who hadn’t had an NHL goal in his first 30 games:
“I was just looking for an opening and Bryzgalov came out and made himself big and I knew I could beat him blocker side and I just tried to get it on net and give it a chance,” Merrill said. “Blocker side, I knew it was there, but I had to make a good shot and it beat him.”
Aside from maybe scoring it a bit sooner in his season, you couldn’t have scripted Merrill’s first NHL goal any better – a big OT winner at home that kept his team alive in the playoff hunt. Merrill became the first Devil ever to have his first goal be an OT game-winner, and the Devils became only the second team to have a pair of rookie defensemen score OT winners in the same season (Merrill and Gelinas). Another odd team stat given by Devils Twitter last night:
If nothing else, the Devils love to make it exciting, don’t they? At least last night’s game provided a memorable moment for a sellout crowd last night, which was probably one reason it took me over an hour to get into Newark. Me and my friend left just after 5:30 and barely got into the Rock at 7, getting to our section during the National Anthem. Despite the sellout, the building looked half filled for much of the first period in part due to the traffic on the roads and in part due to the traffic in the food lines for dollar hot dog night. Conversely, it took us about 35 minutes to get home for the same trip. At least my car started this time, as opposed to after the Stadium Series fiasco. It’s always nice to go home after a win, and the Devils are 5-0-1 in their last six games at the Prudential Center, though technically 5-1-1 at home during that stretch with the Yankee Stadium game counting as a home game (to be fair it did seem like the Devils had a slight majority in that crowd early, but your perception could be influenced by what section you’re sitting in). With only tonight left before the Olympics, the Devils can’t afford to toss in another clunker, especially playing a team they’re dead even with in the standings. A regulation loss for either team at this stage could be deadly given the number of teams they have to jump over to make the playoffs as a Wild Card, although the automatic third berth in the Metro remains in range for the moment.
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