Adam Larsson and the fans celebrate his eventual game-winning goal in the third period against Columbus

Despite the Devils’ 5-3-2 start, last night’s home game against Columbus was critically important for a number of reasons, the obvious one being it was a division game against a team weakened by massive injury concerns.  Among others, the Jackets were missing starting goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and forwards Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Nathan Horton and Boone Jenner and losing all of those key players showed in a 4-1 defeat at home against Toronto on Friday.  With backup goalie Curtis McIlhenney struggling the Jackets decided to give Anton Forsberg his first career NHL start last night.  If that wasn’t enough reason the Devils needed to win, consider the upcoming schedule which will have eleven out of the team’s next fourteen games on the road (including a Western Canada trip) after finishing out the homestand Tuesday against a tough Blues team, and during that stretch the Devils will have no fewer than five back-to-backs.

Things looked bad for a while with the Devils giving up the first goal barely a minute into the game in comical fashion and trailing 2-1 after two periods, but third-period goals by a pair of Adams enabled the Devils to squeeze out a vital regulation win against Columbus.

While in the end winning and getting no new injuries are what matters the most in terms of last night, the Devils know last night’s performance isn’t going to cut it most nights.  As always, Jaromir Jagr tried to be positive and yet pulled no punches in describing what needs to get better:

“How many times can you come back in the third period?” asked Jaromir Jagr, who dug the puck free to Henrique in front on the tying power-play goal 8:54 into the third. “I’m looking at it in a positive way. I think the power and the players are here that we can come back any game. The thing I’m mad about is we don’t play good enough the first two periods. We don’t make it easy for us. We don’t make the right plays.

“Everybody is getting frustrated. I’m getting frustrated. We’re just wasting energy away and we don’t make plays. The third period comes and you’re going to put it together and the power is here to win the hockey games, but we can make it so much easier for ourselves and more enjoyable the games playing the right way. I don’t know. It looks like we always find an excuse for ourselves.”

If Jagr’s assertion sounds harsh, consider the Devils have been outshot in seven of their first eleven games, and badly at times.  Not to mention at times it’s been the veteran players making the most glaring mental and physical mistakes.  Such as the Blue Jackets’ opening goal last night where Ryane Clowe passed the puck back to Bryce Salvador, who was covered – of course, the puck squirted loose causing a two-on-one which was played miserably by Marek Zidlicky allowing Brian Gibbons’ pass to Jack Skille to go through for an easy tap-in goal.  At this point I could only laugh and expect the worst.  Nothing that happened in the rest of a sloppy first period convinced me any differently.

Finally the Devils were able to break through on the scoreboard within seconds of getting a power play when Damon Severson made a nice play keeping the puck in the offensive zone and getting it over to Michael Ryder, who in turn made his own nice play getting around a defender to find a wide-open Zidlicky on his left side.  Zidlicky beat Forsberg with a wrister tying the game at 4:32 with his second goal of the season.  Once again however, the penalty kill giveth what the power play taketh away when passes from Jack Johnson and Gibbons barely eluded the sticks of Patrik Elias and Salvador, with Nick Foligno beating Andy Greene to the net for another easy tap-in goal that put Columbus back in front at 12:30.  As Columbus dominated the latter part of the second period my friend and former seatmate (who I went down two rows to sit with last night after the first period) kidded me it was going to a shootout and I’d have to leave again.  After muttering something about covering my eyes or turning my back and not watching it I added clearly that would have been an improvement over our current state, since we were on track for an embarassing zero-point night.

New Jersey’s power play – and a ghost of playoffs past – saved the day once again as Adam Henrique scored on a netmouth scramble eerily reminiscent of a particular goal in the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals, as Stan Fischler wryly observed interviewing Henrique on the ice in the postgame in front of about fifty remaining fans.  Watching the replay I’m honestly not sure how the ref never lost sight of the puck on this goal with all the bodies in the crease although it clearly was loose next to Forsberg somehow, before Jagr eventually poked it over to Henrique a la Kovalchuk in Game 6 2012.  Unlike the now-famous goal in the 2012 ECF Henrique’s netmouth scramble and celebration on the left side of the net didn’t end the game, only tied it at 8:54.  Less than two minutes later came a surprising winner, from Larsson – he of the career three goals before last night – firing a slapshot through traffic that I’ve joked couldn’t break a pane of glass.  This puck had eyes and beat Forsberg though, for what proved to be the game-winning goal at 10:35.

Larsson’s goal didn’t end the angst by any stretch of the imagination however, as the Devils still had to kill off a late penalty against them and Cory Schnieder stood up to no fewer than fifteen Blue Jacket shots in the third period alone, having his second straight good game with 32 saves, although his wandering eye when puckhandling nearly cost the team a goal in the first period if not for another Johnny On The Spot moment from Severson, who seems to be bailing everyone else out lately.  Still, Cory was by far the team’s best PK’er last night.  While the Devils had their own power play and chance to finish the game, they remained passive which I hate with a one-goal lead.  If you’re going to try to run out the clock you simply have to do a better job of puck possession than the Devils did in the final three minutes.  Fortunately they overcame being passive and sloppy and were able to hang on for the critical two points.