With Columbus winning their game in Dallas and Detroit’s late-game tying goal in Pittsburgh giving them a point, the Devils were officially eliminated from the postseason with three games to go as both the Blue Jackets and Red Wings clinched playoff berths.  Now every Eastern playoff berth is decided with only seeding to be determined (aside from the top-seeded Bruins and second seed Penguins).  Only one playoff berth out West is left to be decided with Dallas and Phoenix set to meet in a potentially decisive matchup in the desert on Sunday if things break right.

As far as the Devils, the full breakdown of what went wrong and where the Devils go from here will come this weekend when our season ends in actuality.  However, now that the team’s out of the race it’s obvious that all of our key injured players (Patrik Elias, Ryane Clowe, Adam Henrique and Bryce Salvador) should be shut down for the season.  What they do with the young defensemen is anyone’s guess…at this point Eric Gelinas should be getting a regular shift for the final three games though.  Adam Larsson should too, though it’s possible he gets sent back down to play instead which is fine, doesn’t really make much of a difference at this point – if anything I’d kind of prefer he and Gelinas both went down since playing NHL games with zero on the line for either team really isn’t going to tell more than playing AHL games where the team’s chasing a playoff berth would.  Maybe they could give defenseman Jon Merrill a rest for the remainder of the season, since he’s clearly graduated from the minors and has already played more this season than in prior years.

While coach Pete DeBoer already committed to playing Cory Schnieder tomorrow in all likelihood Martin Brodeur will be in net for the final two games of the season – both at home – as an extended goodbye to the fans, since it’s obvious he’s going to leave one way or the other.  It’ll be up to the rest of the league to determine whether he retires or actually gets to play somewhere else next year.  For all my issues with Marty this year, at least it’ll be nice to give him a proper sendoff.  Who knows, maybe the Devils can even win a shootout at some point over the final three games now that the pressure’s off.  I’m not sure how much good it’d do to get off the schnied at ‘this’ point though since we’ll still get beaten over the head with our shootout record all summer whether it’s 0-11 or 1-11, either way it was a key factor in missing the playoffs.

At this point though, it’ll be nice to have a rest from this team quite honestly.  What sucks is just how long the rest will be.  After a few weeks I’ll be counting down to October again.  Such is the life of a fan.