Andy Greene celebrates Thursday’s OT winner

For all the problems surrounding the 2013-14 Devils, one thing even I can’t deny…one way or another the team usually makes it exciting in the end.  Especially with our dual propensity to blow big leads, but still have the capability of winning games dramatically.  Both attributes were on display last night at the Rock in a script that’s becoming predictable yet still remains an emotional roller coaster from game-to-game, if not period to period.  With no fewer than twenty-two overtime games out of seventy played and countless other one-goal decisions, the Devils are probably more enjoyable for neutrals to watch than their own frazzled fans.  Even leading scorer Jaromir Jagr mused after the Devils’ 4-3 win against the Wild that ‘the fans pay a lot of money for the tickets, so we’ve got to make them excited’.

If last night’s game turned out to be the Devils’ latest installment of the Perils of Pauline, it started out more as a referendum on ex-captain Zach Parise, as well as current coach Pete DeBoer – who got by far the loudest boos I’ve heard him get to this point during the intros last night.  Not a patch on the boos Parise got during intros and throughout the game every time he touched the puck (I just refer to this as the Scott Gomez treatment), but still loud enough to send a clear message with the Devils on their way to a second straight playoff-less season.  Ironically DeBoer probably had one of his best lineup cards of the season, at least to start the game…benching slumping forwards Damien Brunner and Steve Bernier, and going with seven defensemen to keep Eric Gelinas in the lineup for his PP prowess and in spite of his various defensive hiccups.  DeBoer also restored Cory Schnieder to the crease after Martin Brodeur suffered two straight losses, and early on it paid some dividends after Schnieder stoned Parise of all people on a two-on-none breakaway…a shorthanded breakaway no less.

In fact, the Devils’ power play did not get off to a fantastic start failing miserably on a five-minute major beginning at the end of the first period when the Wild’s Nate Prosser elbowed Tim Sestito in the head and was ejected.  Sestito would not return, so in essence the Devils were now down to ten forwards.  With perennial doghouse member Jacob Josefson only getting shorthanded duty and very infrequent even-strength shifts from then on, the Devils essentially had to roll three lines.  Fortunately, another of our slumping forwards had already gotten the Devils on the board earlier when Michael Ryder scored his first goal in more than two months at 16:58 of the opening period, finishing off a nice give-and-go play from Patrik Elias and Adam Henrique with a patented wrister from the slot we’ve seen too little of lately.

Although scoring on the power play was an issue early, scoring shorthanded was not as Henrique and Elias were again involved in the second goal, this time culminating after Henrique found a wide open Mark Fayne at the point with a nifty backhand pass.  Showing the patience of an actual goalscorer, Fayne took his time advancing and then fired a wrister over the glove of Ilya Bryzgalov for his fourth goal of the season at 9:35 of the second.  While Fayne admitted he didn’t get the shot as high as he would have liked, at least it hit the net and was good enough to score his fourth of the season.  Interestingly, the Devils managed six shots in the opening three minutes of the period while still on the power play though only two the rest of the middle frame – with one of the two being Fayne’s goal.

Up 2-0 after a effective if not convincing first two periods, the Devils’ shutout didn’t last long into the third period as a Ryan Suter snap shot beat Schnieder through traffic near the end of a Wild power play to cut the deficit in half after just twenty-one seconds.  At the arena in fact, it was announced as Parise’s goal as the official scorer thought it was tipped but after a scoring review today the goal went back to Suter.  Of course the boos were palpable when Parise was credited with the goal, and of course these days you always start thinking ‘oh my god, here we go again’ as a Devil fan.  To their credit, the Devils didn’t let that goal deter them and just minutes later got their own power play which they did take advantage of when Ryane Clowe found Jagr with a turnaround backhand pass in the slot, which the 700-goal scorer put in with a wrister for his twenty-third goal of the season at 3:34.

Going off on a slight tangent for a minute before I get to the frantic finish, even if I had wanted to back out of being at this game (and believe me, when it looked like Brodeur was going to be traded to Minnesota I did want to find a way out of going) I had to go because it was my good friend’s birthday – and she was sitting with four of our other friends in section 130 while I was in 120 with my seatmates who happened to be there last night – it’s a good thing my seatmates came too, since 130 was too packed to move over by my other friends until later in the game.  Before the game me and my friend had dinner and then drove to our other friends’ house and went to the arena in two cars in case they had to leave early to get home to their newborn, which they did.  From what I found out later, the husband admitted he thought the game was over at 3-1.  I was like, ‘I would have kicked him if he said that in front of me…these games are never over with the Devils!’.

Although honestly I didn’t think last night would be one of those nights when Jagr scored so quickly after Suter’s goal and the Devils went into cruise control for several minutes.  Then….sigh, another off-angle soft shot goal allowed by Schnieder to Mikael Granlund, keeping up Schnieder’s awful play since the Olympics with at least a bad goal against every game.  Not only did that goal at 10:36 get me rolling my eyes and saying ‘uh oh’, but it seemed to frazzle the Devils who started taking penalties galore and eventually surrendered the tying goal on a Matt Cooke tip-in at 15:28.  During the period between Granlund and Cooke’s goals, my friend texted me that our other friends had left so I could come over to sit in one of the vacated seats but since there was no stoppage in play I had to stay in my section for several minutes until Cooke tied it up.  Then I was so annoyed I left the section at that point and watched the next two minutes in the hall before there was finally another stoppage.  Needless to say I wasn’t in a festive mood when I finally wound up over there.

Too bad the Devils didn’t give out their promo items (stress pucks lol) until after the game, it would have been a good night to use them during the game.  Eventually the two teams grinded their way to overtime, where the Devils had to win or risk almost certain defeat in the shootout – especially given Parise’s prowess in it, and Schnieder’s lack of.  If our 0-8 record in the skills competition has been an eyesore, our 9-5 record in overtime has been a godsend…and proved to be so one more time last night when Elias gained entry into the Minnesota zone with nifty stickhandling, then put a shot on net which Henrique tried to stuff in but instead the puck bounced to a wide-open Andy Greene and he did the honors of finishing the game with his eighth goal of the season two minutes into OT.  When one of my other friends – who’s the biggest goofball alive – asked if I was happy now, I at first said yeah and then corrected myself saying ‘relieved is a better word’.  Cause really defeat would have provided all but certain extinction from the playoff race with the Blue Jackets, Red Wings and Flyers all winning again last night.

As it is, the Devils face a total must-win tomorrow against the Rangers at the Rock.  With only twelve games left and still five points back or more of all the teams in front of them for a berth, time is running out fast.  Despite Schnieder getting the win (as ugly as it was), DeBoer’s going back to Brodeur tomorrow, which is of course totally inconsistent with the way he handles Brodeur – never benching him after his ugly wins.  Of course there’s the dual factor involved of Brodeur wanting revenge for his Yankee Stadium debacle and the team wanting to acede to a legend who’s become more and more of a loose cannon by the day, shockingly taking his own GM to task yesterday with a public criticism over how the organization handled the Parise FA situation.

“We had plenty of chances,” Brodeur said. “We had two years to talk to him and figure out something and we waited and waited and it was too late…When you know you have an athlete that is going to be a game breaker and he’s going to be one of the top players (available) and the rules are free agency comes a lot younger than it used to, you have to make commitments.  You see around the league some of the guys, the (Steven) Stamkos and etc., they don’t wait. They get them done. And we let him walk to free agency.”

While I’ve been critical myself of the way Lou’s handled certain UFA’s (mainly our archaic policy of not negotiating in-season), it’s a bit unseemly for Brodeur to criticize an organization that arguably is torpedoing its season bending over to him time and again and not allowing Schnieder to find any kind of a rhythm post-Olympics – he hasn’t had back-to-back starts since the break yet.  Besides, how would Brodeur know what Parise and Lou may or may not have talked about in their own negotiations?  I seriously doubt Lou would have told his goaltender that he wasn’t negotiating with Zach.  If he got that idea from anywhere it was Zach’s camp though Parise himself publicly pooh-pooed the idea that Lou waited too long.  Granted, Parise was possibly trying to play to the fans…if he was, it obviously didn’t work, but let’s be honest about one thing…Parise sure as shooting wasn’t going to tell Marty that he was texting Suter during the season now was he?  So clearly there wasn’t full disclosure one way or another from Zach.

If Marty truly felt that way he should have said something two years ago instead of waiting till before the most important game of the season when he had an axe to grind, which he clearly does since he’s obviously mad at the organization both for the Schnieder draft-day trade (and release of good buddy Johan Hedberg that resulted from it), as well as the fact Brodeur was not traded when he did everything to make his wishes known short of overtly calling a press conference to announce he wanted a trade.  According to various media outlets, he was furious when he wasn’t traded though perhaps part of the blame comes from his own camp if there was indeed a deal in place to send him to the Wild but the public speculation about it on deadline day could well have ended any discussions since Lou has been known before to nix a trade if something leaks.  We know Lou wouldn’t leak it and I don’t think Wild GM Chuck Fletcher would be stupid enough to do so.

It wouldn’t shock me at all if all the furor surrounding Marty since the break has had an effect on Cory too, especially with the lack of action he’s gotten as the team’s given Marty whatever start he wanted – giving him the Isle game off the break just in case it was his last game, then the Wing game which was surreptitously hyped up as his last possible home game, then after Cory imploded in Detroit just after the deadline the die was cast and we were back to the Marty Show again.  Of course Cory himself needs to step it up too, before I start to fully believe he’s overrated based on a Vancouver team that inflates the save percentage of all its goalies.  Pity that Marty’s Favre-esque behavior is marring whatever enjoyment I’d get out of his final season as a Devil.  Obviously it is going to be his final season here at this point with all the bad blood that seems to exist from Marty’s side toward the organization, and the fact he thinks he can still be a starting goalie in the league and wants to chase 700 wins, all that nonsense.

And so it’s with even more drama that we head into tomorrow’s game, with Brodeur getting one more ‘we love you now please pipe down’ start, and without any real resolution of whether Schnieder’s the guy we should be tying our fate to long-term after Marty leaves.