Despite the Devils’ gritty victory in Newark over one playoff hopeful last night, going to Carolina to beat another team desperately trying to stay in the race seemed like a tall order tonight.  New Jersey made the trip without injured forwards Patrik Elias, Adam Henrique, Jacob Josefson and Ryane Clowe.  Playing a fourth game in six nights with a lineup that was offensively challenged even before losing a third of their top nine forwards against a team that’s always been a pain in the neck…what kind of odds would you have put on it?  Yet, somehow, someway this suddenly fired up group managed to pull another one out of the fire, grinding out a 3-1 road win that all but eliminated the Canes and put the Devils one point outside of a playoff position.  Granted, Columbus still has a game in hand on the field but with the pack getting closer, it’ll be interesting to see how they respond against a pesky Islanders team tomorrow.

Columbus 85 points (34 ROW) – 5 GL, Devils 84 points (34 ROW) – 4 GL, Leafs 84 points (29 ROW) – 3 GL, Caps 83 points (25 ROW) – 4 GL

Barely twenty-four hours ago things looked bleak with the Devils five points out and having just lost Elias due to a suspected concussion.  Granted, even after this win the Devils still face an uphill road in the season’s final week, starting with a home game against Calgary on Monday that will be our fifth in seven nights with a depleted lineup.  And the Jackets still need to lose a couple of games before we can control our destiny fully.  At least the season’s third-to-last home game will have real meaning though.  Even play-by-play announcer Steve Cangelosi got caught up in the emotion with an excited ‘who would have thought this, but the Devils are just one point out!’ call at the end of the 3-1 win.  Perhaps just as meaningful as the situation itself is how the Devils have stayed alive the last two games.

Clearly despite the resiliency of the eighteen skaters on the ice, you have to start by giving credit to Cory Schnieder.  Finally given a chance to play in big games, he’s responding like a guy who should be the Devils’ goalie going forward not only for this year but for years to come.  Schnieder made 26 high-pressure saves today, only allowing Jeff Skinner‘s snipe in the second period that needed video review to confirm when the officials initially let play continue.  Another player who deserves special notice tonight was Danius Zubrus, who’s certainly struggled for the majority of the season, but thrust into a second-line center role with the Devils’ MASH unit, he responded with not one, but two goals.  Granted, the first goal was a backhander through the legs of Anton Khudobin that the Canes netminder probably should have stopped late in the first period, but Zubie still busted it to stay ahead of the defender on his partial breakaway.  And his second goal was the game-clinching empty-netter in the final minute, which is noteworthy itself given our utter lack of empty-net goals this season.  Our last one came when Elias was trying to pass to Henrique for a hat trick a few weeks back.

Fortunately coach Pete DeBoer was able to get away with spreading out the minutes a little more tonight during a fourth game in six nights, with only Andy Greene playing above 21 minutes (25:46), while only ‘fourth-liners’ Mike Sislo and Eric Gelinas came in at under ten minutes.  Gelinas played very little tonight mostly because the Devils only had one power play and again dressed seven defensemen.  With the return of Jon Merrill to the lineup, it was of course Adam Larsson who fell by the wayside again despite three strong games since his return – I’m not a big fan of shot-based stats but apparently last night the Devils outshot the Caps 10-0 with him on the ice during his 10+ minutes.  Tell me if you think this lineup should be winning games in the NHL:

Forwards: Ruutu-Zajac-Jagr, Brunner-Zubrus-Ryder, Carter-Gionta-Bernier (as the third line), Sislo-Sestito-Gelinas

Defense: Greene-Fayne, Zidlicky-Volch, Merrill-Harrold and Goaltender: Schnieder

At one point this season Zubrus had scored just two goals in thirty-nine games, tonight he got his 12th and 13th of the season.  Even top center Travis Zajac has picked it up offensively lately with an outside chance at 20 goals and 50 points after getting his 17th tonight on a tip-in moments after Skinner had tied the game in the second period.  For the rest of the night a tired Devils team was seemingly on its heels more often than not, but the adage bend but don’t break certainly applied to our defense for the most part.  Despite some inspired play by ex-Devil Andrei Loiktionov in 21:49 of icetime (three whole games’ worth with us!), the Devils managed to keep the top line of Staal-Loiktionov-Semin off the board.  Actually tonight reminded me a little of Game 5 of the Finals two years ago, with how we managed to win a tight game despite being tired and on our heels for most of the latter part of it.

That game might have been the last time I’ve been as proud of the team as I’ve been the last two nights.