https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfkaLkEr_2E

After four straight defeats dropped the Devils below .500 they faced if not a must-win, then something very close to it last night against the Wild…especially with the other locals winning big last night.  With pressure mounting and captain Bryce Salvador joining the walking wounded with an undisclosed lower body injury, coach Pete DeBoer started Cory Schneider in goal for the sixteenth straight game (and four games in six nights in four cities).  If Cory had been playing well this would have  been one thing, but he’d already been rocky in the last three games – getting pulled in two.  This was certainly a decision that had the potential to backfire badly, especially given Cory’s own comments after Monday’s loss in Boston which suggested he would be open to having a break.

However, last night’s game proved to be what the doctor ordered in more ways than one as Schneider was the player of the game making several outstanding saves in a 3-1 triumph, only being his worst enemy on a puckhandling snafu in the third period that gave Ryan Carter (yes the former Devil) a shorthanded goal early in the third period that turned a solid 2-0 game into a shaky one-goal one.  Still, Cory responded to the pressure well – especially following his mistake when the Devils didn’t play very well in the third.  Devils winger Mike Cammalleri echoed the sentiments of many last night:

This has been a little bit too long for us here, so there was definitely a sense of urgency in our room and I thought nobody exemplified that better than our goaltender.  He was by far our best player tonight and there was a lot of will there, I think, by him. He decided that we were going to win the game, it seemed, and that was it.

If anyone else deserved to be a star of the game last night though it was Cammalleri himself, who scored what turned out to be the winning goal at 9:53 of the second period, playing nearly twenty-two minutes including some key shorthanded time and being Johnny On The Spot when a Jaromir Jagr shot rebounded right to the winger on the side of the net and he put home the rebound for his sixth goal of the season, a total even more remarkable considering Cammalleri had just come off a six-game absence from a suspected concussion.  Cammalleri also had a few other chances to pad his goal total last night but hit a crossbar and a post, though as he wryly observed afterward it’s a good thing those goals weren’t neccesary.

It’s impossible to overstate how neccesary Cammalleri’s presence has been to the team, considering the recent losing streak started with him out of the lineup.  In addition to his return, Martin Havlat also played last night for the first time in three weeks and coach DeBoer also intimated after the game a couple other players were close to returning as well (re: center Adam Henrique and defenseman Jon Merrill).  With both Merrill and Salvador out last night, rookie Seth Hegelson was called up from Albany and played in his first NHL game.  Though Hegelson only played a hair over six minutes they proved somewhat eventful as he took a penalty and on the plus side had three hits and got his first NHL point on Tuomo Ruutu’s opening goal at 5:42 of the second period, firing a shot that the vet winger deflected past Darcy Kuemper.

Perhaps the true benficiary of Salvador’s absence last night was defenseman Adam Larsson, who saw his icetime spike from 12-13 minutes to over 18 – including a bunch of shorthanded time as he, Andy Greene and Damon Severson were the only defensemen that were on the ice for the Wild’s four power plays last night.  And for once, the Devils killed off every penalty.  Fellow Swede Jacob Josefson also played some on the PK and played well but made his biggest contribution on the aformentioned opening goal where his speed helped the Devils keep possession in the Wild zone (though Josefson would not be credited with an assist on Ruutu’s goal).  It would be nice if his icetime started going into four digits though – Josefson only played 9:47 last night despite a couple of shorthanded shifts.  Ironically though Ruutu – the goalscorer – had the least amount of icetime on the fourth line and among Devil forwards last night.

And yes I’ll admit it, I thought DeBoer should have been fitted for a straitjacket playing Cory yet again last night but after he stopped a point-blank chance by Marco Scandella early in the first period I had a good feeling.  Helping the cause ironically enough, was the continued absence of former Devil Zach Parise, out several games with a concussion of his own.  Clearly the Wild power play missed him for they weren’t able to solve the easy riddle our PK has been up to this point in the season.  Through two periods and the start of the third, it felt like it was going to be a workmanlike victory.

Then IT happened.

On a three-minute power play caused by a Charlie Coyle high stick while the Wild were on their own PP, a puck came into the Devils zone just beyond the reach of Carter but Schnieder inexplicably threw the puck toward the boards with a backhand to nobody.  Carter alertly got the puck and then fired a quick turnaround shot on net while Schnieder was still getting reset in the cage and the puck squirted by him for yet another episode in the ‘misadventures of the wandering Cory’ miniseries, which is going into syndication soon.  Ironically that goal led to two unusual occurences in the crowd – one was the modest cheers that broke out when Carter was announced as the goalscorer (see, Devil fans do treat certain departing players with respect after all), and two was the crowd going psycho every time Cory tried to play the puck after that.  I was feeling it myself screaming ‘STOP!!!’ at the top of my lungs the first couple of times Cory wandered out of his cage again after that.  Even Cory couldn’t resist poking fun at himself in the postgame saying how he made it interesting for the crowd with the goal in the third.

At the time of course it wasn’t a laughing matter, and I had a sinking feeling we’d blow this game as we’ve blown so many others the last few years.  Perhaps we would have but Cory stepped up and took everyone starting with himself off the griddle, even making a save on a two-on-zero at one point shortly after the goal.  For a while it seemed the rest of the Devils were in shock but Cory held firm and finally Travis Zajac sealed the game in the last minute with an empty-net goal (making it two goals and three points in two games for Zajac, who only had one goal and four points before Monday).  Cory had turned a smattering of pregame boos (!) into unanimous cheering by game’s end with a reel of saves worthy of its own YouTube – see above.