In a season of dissapointments – Scott Gomez’s return has been one of the few things worth celebrating for Devils fans (yes, really!)

It’s been a struggle to find something new to write about the Devils lately, or really something worthwhile to write about.  To a degree I’ve felt a bit detached from the team lately with the light home schedule (I’ve only been at home home game the last two weeks and it’ll be nearly two more before the Devils return home after the All-Star break), and the fact I wasn’t able to watch their last two road games even – well I could have watched the LA game but staying up for a weekday West Coast game isn’t worth it when the team’s 900 points out of a playoff spot.  I did listen to much of the Ducks game Friday on the radio unfortunately, which was a virtual no-show for two periods further marred by an upper-body injury to goaltender Cory Schneider which knocked him out after the first period, though supposedly he’s feeling better today.

Honestly at this point the whole rest of the season is just waiting for the other shoe to drop in early March when the trading deadline comes, after the first shoe already hit the floor with the post-Christmas firing of coach Pete DeBoer.  So far the on-ice results since the coaching change have been mixed, by and large the team has played somewhat better than it did for most of the season, yesterday’s no-show in Anaheim notwithstanding.  Perhaps the biggest positives with the coaching change have both been defensively – as a unit allowing fewer shots than they were early in the season, and also individually the development of former #4 overall pick Adam Larsson.

I’ve railed countless times on the prior administration’s shackling of the 22-year old Swede the last three years and it’s no accident Scott Stevens on his first day back behind the bench as a co-coach publicly complimented Larsson and let it be known he would get a more extended opportunity.  For the most part he’s responded, stepping up his game playing 25 minutes a night with Andy Greene.  Now even when he makes a mistake – such as getting stripped behind the net on the John Tavares game-winning goal last Friday – he was publicly supported and thrown right back on the horse, responding with a strong game in LA as the Devils surprisingly rubbed out the defending Cup champs on the road in a 5-3 game which wasn’t even that close.  With Larsson finally re-establishing himself as a top four defenseman for the first time since his rookie season our top four on defense will be something worth watching in the second half once Damon Severson returns from his ankle injury after the break.  Having a solid vet like Greene with three kids in Larsson, rookie Severson and second-year man Jon Merrill all showing promise (backed up with solid goaltending from Schneider and rookie Keith Kinkaid) at least provides a light at the end of the tunnel of a sorry season.

Of course offensively it’s a different story…between injuries, dissapointments and age there isn’t really very much to hang the hat on right now other than the stunning feel-good return of Scott Gomez.  Thought washed up by many including me after he’d washed out of Montreal, San Jose and Florida the last few years, he returned to the Devils this summer on a tryout essentially waiting around for an opportunity for two months after the preseason.  Since being signed in early December, he’s turned back the clock a bit with fourteen points in twenty-two games, playing first-line minutes for the first time in years.  Maybe his career being on the line made him hungry again, but honestly it just seems like…he’s rejuvanated being back here, a la Petr Sykora in 2012. Gomez may have been the 26th Devil to return to play for the team but even in a bad team season, his comeback may actually prove to be one of the more successful ones (since Claude Lemieux was a part of cup #2 in 2000 anyway).

Still it’s telling that a 35-year old center on a one-year deal represents a bright spot in this Devils forward group.  Or Steve Bernier’s return to being a solid role player this year after having an off year last year that led GM Lou Lamoriello to publicly chide Bernier after re-signing him to a one-year deal.  At least free-agent signee Mike Cammalleri’s added goal-scoring (potting 14 in thirty-four games) – when he’s played.  Unfortunately he’s living up to his track record in that area too, missing 12 of the first 46 games this season.  Sadly, this season might prove to be the end of the road for Jaromir Jagr as his production’s dipped this season with just nine goals and twenty-five points in 43 games, and now he’s missing the west coast trip before the break due to illness.  Patrik Elias has also struggled with injuries and other than his three-point milestone night against the Sabres, his season really hasn’t been anything to write home about either with six goals and twenty points in thirty-six games with an onerous -15.  I don’t really want to go through all the forwards right now though, it’s just too depressing.

With only one more game before the break (also a west coast tilt, this time with the Sharks), my attention span’s going to wane further.  Elias’s token inclusion in the goofball All-Star game the NHL has isn’t enough to pique my interest there.  Most of my attention around the NHL lately has been limited to checking my fantasy team’s stats.  Maybe I’ll write a little on my fantasy team during the week-long All-Star break, though really the crux of the matter is my team’s in third place – after being in first for most of the season – in a fourteen team league despite an offense that ranks near the top in almost every category, because my Kings goaltending has been surprisingly pedestrian and my goaltending numbers are among the worst in every category except shutouts.  Of course the Devils of all teams lighting up Martin Jones on Friday bemused me, as did one of my competitors getting two straight shutouts from Ryan Miller and rocketing past me into first by a fair margin.

That said I am going to the Prudential Center not once, but twice this week amazingly enough.  So I guess I won’t be entirely detached…the AHL team’s playing at the Rock on Wednesday so that’ll be interesting.  It was fun a few years ago watching the minor leaguers when they beat Hartford on a late goal I think by Nick Palmeri (the answer to the trivia question who was the third guy on a line with Ilya Kovalchuk and Travis Zajac during our futile surge in 2011), amazingly enough.  This time they’ll be playing the Islanders’ affiliate, and once again the AHL version of the Devils are a borderline playoff team, so every game can make a difference.  Of course at the AHL level it’s as much about the prospects developing as it is about winning, if not more so.  Still, you want to at least re-establish a winning culture somewhere in the organization.  There’s no game at the Rock Friday of course, but I got an e-mail invite for a season ticket holder screening of the movie Red Army on the arena’s scoreboard – if you’ve never heard of the movie, the quick synopsis is it’s an inside look at the Russian hockey team and culture during the cold war.  I’d actually wanted to see that movie but it only played in limited screenings way out past Manhattan so it really wasn’t worth making a $30 trek between train ticket and movie ticket.  It’s nice of the Devils to show it here though, even if only like five other people are going to show up in all likelihood.

Sadly those two events probably will be more fun than I have at most Devil games this season, where I’ve only seen four wins in the fourteen games I attended (and one of them was the ‘shootout win’ against the Jets where I was in the parking lot by the conclusion because I couldn’t bear to watch 0-18 become 0-19).  Oh well, most years the Devils have been good to me in terms of wins to games attended.  At this point it’s sort of like an AHL mentality where the development of players on the roster is going to take precedence over hoping for wins.  Truth be told however, this long break between home games couldn’t have come at a better time given the struggles this season.  Especially now with the opportunity to get nostalgic with the news that the Izod Center  – formerly Continental Airlines Arena and Brendan Byrne Arena – will apparently finally be closing its doors in the next month or so.  I’ll save going down memory lane for next week though.