https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIyTHWMJ2og

Perhaps it’s for the best if I don’t see any highlights (or lowlights as they were) of last night’s 6-2 loss in Washington.  What I heard on the radio was more than enough with Cory Schnieder’s misplay on the fifth goal summing up an overall bad night for him and his team.  Aside from super rookie Damon Severson anyway, who’s continuing to take the league by storm with another two goals last night, upping his total to three on the young season – and playing nearly twenty-two minutes with significant TOI in all situations.  By the way, Adam Larsson has three goals in his entire three-year NHL career.  Just saying.  Severson’s more than just a scorer though, he’s been a solid all around contributor, as evidenced by his increasing PK time over the season’s first week plus.  As much as I want to put the brakes on the hype and remind people that Larsson started out strong in his rookie year too, it’s impossible when you see things like this:

Bowman, by the way was in attendance for Tuesday’s game in Tampa.  There is one significant difference between Larsson then and Severson now (besides the goalscoring), Severson IS two years older after all – age 20 now, while Larsson started at 18.  I have to admit maybe the staff wasn’t so crazy letting him have a job straight out of camp despite only a handful of pro games with Albany last year, for whatever complications might eventually develop with the former #4 overall pick, who clearly hasn’t developed as fast as lesser-heralded picks like Severson and Jon Merrill.  You can’t really argue with a winning lineup, and coach Pete DeBoer hasn’t – not changing the lines or defensive rotation through the first four games.

Between the loss and the gruesome face injury to Martin Havlat last night though (supposedly badly cut along the bridge of his nose when accidentally caught by a ref’s elbow, you really can’t make this stuff up), DeBoer might not have much of a choice but to change the lineup for tomorrow’s home opener.  For the talk about Severson, the defense as a whole has had its rough patches.  After leading the league in fewest shots allowed last season, the Devils have been outshot in every game this year.  Coach DeBoer dodged a tough question about whether vets Bryce Salvador and Marek Zidlicky had a tough night in Tampa by saying matter-of-factly the Lightning players give a lot of defensemen tough nights.  Which is true, but either way the few vets we have need to start playing better, before we do become guilty of giving the kids too much too soon.  If there is going to be a change on defense tomorrow it’ll most likely be Eric Gelinas coming out for Larsson, which will make opposing goaltenders breathe a sigh of relief – but of the three young guns he’s the most defensively challenged and was a -2 last night.

It also needs to be said that the Devils have faced three pretty good offensive teams out of the four games and did well to get three wins in that stretch, with all of them being road games.  However you can’t count on the type of offensive outbursts the Devils had in their first two games every night either.  Our game in Tampa is probably the more likely template to winning games this year – keep the puck out of the net and score timely goals.  The former starts with Schnieder, who had a bit of an uneven road trip playing very well in the two Florida games, not so well in the two division games in Philly and Washington.  After yesterday’s stinker tomorrow is a big game for him, another bad one and the vultures will start to circle over a first-time #1 goaltender trying to replace the great Brodeur.

Up front you can’t complain about the results so far…fifteen goals on the trip and no less than two in any game.  Albeit last night both goals came from Severson and the forwards were shut down.  Perhaps last night was just a end-of-trip lull, certainly seemed that way after the first period from the recaps.  Still there’s a lot to feel good about to this point, the top three lines are all contributing (even without a goal from last year’s team MVP Jaromir Jagr), and big FA signing Mike Cammalleri seems to fit like a glove.  I do kind of want to pump the brakes on the Zach Parise comparisons a little, but both are similar players – smallish guys with a nose around the net and willing to embrace backchecking – and so far Camm has been at least a Parise-lite player here to this point, continuing his high level of play from the end of last season in Calgary.

So now after nearly two weeks, we finally get to see a ‘real’ home game tomorrow.  I didn’t attend any preseason games, though I did see an Aerosmith concert with friends early last month and clearly the building looked like it was still under renovation between a new food vendor that’ll bring in a bunch of new eateries (Legends), the team store expansions and the 3D technology that’s being put in for pregames and eventually in-game stuff.  I did make it out to the arena last weekend for the annual season ticket holder barbeque, which is an informal way to meet the players in a variety of settings, whether it’s getting pictures around the concourse or participating and attending mock press conferences in two different locales.  The barbeque served a double purpose as many of the new arena food options were available for taste-testing.  It was all I could do to avoid taking a bunch of the chicken parm samples.  Many of the players even participated in cooking demonstrations outside the Fire Lounge.

Also set to change (again) is the goal song, and at the barbeque the Devils publicized fan involvement – which can be seen in the ‘Let’s Go Devils!’ fan chants interspersed throughout the goal song posted above, also an individual fan creation.  I can’t say how much I like or dislike the song until I actually see it at the arena but hey, nothing can be as bad as ‘This Is Our House’, right?  At least having fan chants is better than just the canned LGD chant the team used in its second attempt to replace Rock and Roll Part 2 last year, after the Bon Jovi Our House song failed miserably.  Clearly the contreversy over replacing the goal song is not going away judging by the stupid, asinine social media attempts to boo the song again and intersperse ‘You Suck’ into it though at this point fans are just being childish.

As evidenced by a number of outlets fans still have not accepted that RR2 is not coming back, and will not come back under this ownership which is clearly commited to ‘changing the culture’.  People protested, argued and wrote angry letters last year but at some point they have to give up the ghost.  Even Nashville is no longer using the song.  You can agree or disagree with it, and the team’s reasoning why, at some point you just have to accept that a twenty-second song isn’t worth dragging everything through the mud for.  Especially when booing and stupid chants come to mar the team actually scoring, the way it did in last year’s home opener when the team tried to change the goalsong without anyone knowing (at least this year they’ve been more above board about it).  In theory you’re there to watch your team win a hockey game, not attend a concert where you don’t like the playlist.

Goal song nonsense aside, I am looking forward to seeing the new changes at Prudential Center and hopefully the team continues its strong play of the first three games as opposed to the dud last night.