Battle Of Hudson

After approximately one-quarter of the season, it’s somewhat surprising that as of this point, the Devils haven’t played either of their New York rivals yet this season. That’s set to change in a big way this weekend however, as the Devils and Islanders get set for a home-and-home showdown with a weird 3 PM start time on Long Island tomorrow afternoon when some of us (including me) actually do have to work, and a more normal 1 PM start time on Saturday at the Rock. Both teams are going in opposite directions right now, with the Devils off to an 11-8-1 start after winning four of their last six, while the Isles are stuck in the basement once again after a 5-10-3 start and losses in their last three – including a 5-0 loss in Pittsburgh where they served as the props for Sidney Crosby‘s storybook comeback.

Despite the records, you can always count on a good effort from the Isles against their neighbors. Even if the Isles preceded their loss in Pittsburgh with a 6-0 blanking at the hands of the Cup champs, and followed it by losing a two-goal lead against the Flyers. Three players in particular will want to do well against the Devils this weekend – Mike Mottau, Jay Pandolfo and Brian Rolston. Mottau left the Devils last season as a free agent and became one of the few players to play for all three NY-NJ teams, long-time Devil Pando is attempting a comeback after a year away from the game and two-time Devil Rolston was ‘traded’ to the Isles for the right to buy out Trent Hunter‘s contract. Hey, at least we gave Hunter a tour of the building in his week-long tenure as a Devil.

Last season’s games, in particular showed the competitiveness between the two teams, as all were memorable in different ways. Eerily, the two teams first met the day after Thanksgiving in an afternoon matinee on Long Island last year, a dubious game that saw the Devils lose 2-0 to an Islander team that came into the game on a fourteen, yes fourteen-game losing streak. Our second matchup at the Rock just before Christmas was even more embarassing, as the Isles whipped us 5-1 in a matchup of the two worst teams in the NHL, sending us to the bottom of the league in Jacques Lemaire‘s return to the bench.

Eventually things started to improve under Lemaire, and the Devils for a rare time in recent memory actually handled the Isles up in Nassau easily in late January, with even Vladimir Zharkov scoring his first career NHL goal in a 5-2 win. As both teams started to get competitive and make improbable late-season runs, the final three games of the season all took place in March, with the Devils beating the Isles in a stirring shootout win 3-2 on the 6th at Long Island. Rolston of all people ‘called his shot’ by standing up at the bench, convincing Lemaire to use him and subsequently scoring the winner in the skills competition. Back at the Rock six days later, the two teams went to OT again before Anssi Salmela‘s winner gave the Devils another 3-2 win and was perhaps Steve Cangelosi‘s best single goal call at the mike. Finally both teams fell out of it in mid-March but they both played one more spirited game, once again won 3-2 by the Devils at the Rock though this came in regulation on March 30.

As far as this year’s teams go, the records may be different right now but the Devils’ 11-8-1 start has by no means been easy, with five of those wins coming in the shootout including what was a somewhat ugly game against the Columbus Blue Jackets last night. That game was only the second home contest I’ve missed all year, as I was uptown at a friend’s birthday dinner. When I saw the recap that Martin Brodeur had 36 saves, including 17 in a third period where we were outshot 17-3 I just shook my head. Thank goodness Brodeur, fellow goalie Johan Hedberg (winner of all the previous shootouts) and star wingers Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk have all been money in the skills competition. God knows Parise and Kovalchuk have gotta carry their weight somehow, since they’re not scoring much in the first sixty-five minutes of the game.

It didn’t occur to me that anyone other than Brodeur would have been the first star of the game but when I got home and saw that Jackets enforcer Jared Boll was somehow named first star, after playing only six minutes plus and ‘scoring’ the tying goal off his skate, I was dumbfounded. It’s like there’s a rule in the media voting that the first star must automatically go to the guy who scored the tying goal in a tie hockey game (since the shootouts aren’t taken into consideration with the three stars), irrespective of how the game actually went. On the brighter side, Danius Zubrus played in his 1000th NHL game and celebrated by scoring his team’s only goal in regulation.

While timely goaltending, penalty killing and shootout scoring is getting the Devils by for now, the Isles are stuck in netural with nearly all the goalies they’ve stockpiled for depth shelved by injuries. When everyone was healthy, it was an unwieldy mess with Al Montoya (last season’s late sensation), vet Evgeni Nabokov after he was forced to report, and the perpetually hurt Rick DiPietro splitting time. That’s not even including prospect Kevin Poulin, who played some last year and is also on the shelf. Amusingly DiPietro’s the only one who is still standing, at least as of now. It’s as if his fragility is a disease that’s now become contagious to the other netminders. Faceless Anders Nilsson was thrown to the wolves against the Pens but it’s likely DiPietro will get at least one of the two games this weekend.

Despite the invasion of ex-Devils to Long Island, they haven’t done much to stop the losing with Rolston having just two goals, two assists and a -6 in 17 games (shocking, I know). Mottau – coming off a serious eye injury last year – has played twelve games without a point and is a -5 himself. And Pando has just one goal with a -5 in 19 games. Then again, the only Isle skater of consequence who isn’t a minus something is Frans Nielsen, an E after his 19 games played. With just thirty-eight goals in 19 games, the Isles’ scoring woes are even more pronounced than ours, though our scoring and specifically the power play has at least started to improve from awful to merely average-below average.

After playing the last four games and winning three of them, look for Brodeur to sit tomorrow in favor of Hedberg and probably be back in there Saturday at the Rock, the Devils’ last home game before yet another four-game trip – at Colorado, Minnesota, Winnipeg and Toronto. In other lineup news, the dissapointing Nick Palmeri (3 G, 3 A, -5 in 19 games) finally got sent down today. Happy Thanksgiving, Nick 😛

All in all, the Devils are in the middle of a ten games out of twelve stretch on the road, and not playing in the same rink more than once in a row. Still, there’s no excuse for the Devils to not at least split the home and home, which I sort of expect anyway. Yeah, the games will probably be wars but if you’re a playoff team you have to beat last-place teams the majority of the time. So far, the Devils have played a very tough schedule, as I’m getting reminded constantly when I’m skeptical about the team’s chances. Now’s their chance to start making hay against some of the lesser lights.

If you’d asked me before this stretch whether I’d have taken a 3-3 record playing the Caps in a home-and-home followed by four road games against Boston, Buffalo, Tampa Bay and Florida I would have signed up for that absolutely. That said, these last few games have seen some troubling signs for the Devils. Even before blowing a 3-0 lead tonight in Florida and losing in regulation 4-3, you could see this coming for about a week. After all, the Devils gave up three third-period goals in Boston, including one in the last three minutes, getting no points out of a game they otherwise played well. In Tampa, the Devils came perilously close to blowing a 3-0 lead that game before Dwayne Roloson‘s late puck blunder finally gave the team breathing room late. And even a game where the Devils won somewhat comfortably in Buffalo, they leaked away a couple of unneccesary goals late and made the final few minutes more anxious than they needed to be.

Of course, none of that compared to tonight’s disaster. This is one where I’m glad I wasn’t watching the whole game, in fact I was out and didn’t have my phone on me so I didn’t know what was happening the first 50 minutes. When I saw the early third period score of 3-2 Devils, I was like great. It was only later that I realized we’d actually been up 3-0 after blitzing the Panthers in the first period before giving up the two to make it a nail-biter. Of course I cringed when the Devils surrendered a 4-on-3 shorthanded goal (yet another power play of doom) by Stephen Weiss. And after giving up yet another late goal in the final three minutes to lose the chance to even get one point, I was ticked. I would have been better off just seeing the score and not knowing what happened. Of course I couldn’t have stayed away from the ‘how’ forever.

Adding to the bad news, the Devils lost Anton Volchenkov early in the game to an upper body injury and had to play with five defensemen for most of the contest. At times in the third period, they were playing with four given our continuing parade to the penalty box. Henrik Tallinder and Bryce Salvador both took delay-of-game penalties, with Salvador’s proving the killer as Tomas Fleischmann scored the winner. Florida’s top line of Fleischmann-Weiss and Kris Versteeg abused the Devils all night, which is a bad sign going forward. If you can’t shut down a one-line team, how are you going to stop good offenses? As good as Martin Brodeur and Johan Hedberg have been, even they can’t survive long behind defensive ‘efforts’ like this.

I use the word effort loosely, as even coach Pete DeBoer admitted after the game the team stopped playing after the first period. It was a game that the coach definitely wanted to win in his ‘homecoming’ after being fired by the Panthers last year. Instead, it was the new-look Panthers who walked out with the two points and a win that signaled they would be a pain in the neck all season. If you assume that the Penguins, Flyers, Sabres, Bruins and Capitals make the playoffs, that only leaves three spots for the other ten teams in the conference. Florida’s showing they want to be one of those teams, perhaps pulling a surprise season out of their hat the way their in-state rivals Tampa did last year. Certainly the Rangers have gotten off to a good start as well. It’s going to be nip and tuck just to get in and the Devils won’t get in with more fiascoes like tonight or the third period in Boston.

Oh and one more thing…a message to the captain. Now it’s time to stop sulking and pick it up. I was perfectly willing to write off Zach Parise‘s start to the fact he only played one game in eleven months – until I saw Sidney Crosby‘s line of two goals and two assists tonight (memo also to Alex Ovechkin, who’s been stinking it up for my fantasy team the last two years: that’s a real superstar). While Crosby lit it up in the first game, the captain’s going backwards with a -2 and two shots on net tonight, and a -1 and one shot on net two nights ago. If you’re sulking about Ilya Kovalchuk getting the big money and you not, or mentor Jamie Langenbrunner leaving under bad circumstances then maybe we shouldn’t be giving you the big money after this year. With each passing game, I’m buying the Parise’s gone hype more and more and it looks like he’s counting down the days too. When David Clarkson looks 100% better than you as a hockey player, that’s bad.

Heading into their fourth game in six nights, the Devils had started to get their offensive attack going a little with three goals the night before in a tough loss at Boston, and with Ilya Kovalchuk coming back after a five-game absence the offense looked to keep trending upward in Buffalo. However, the Devils were also playing their fourth game in six nights, in four different cities – and against an opponent that was not only five games over .500 but still hopping mad after Boston’s Milan Lucic took out starting goaltender Ryan Miller with a hit that surprisingly went unpunished by discipline czar Brendan Shanahan.

All of which made their five-goal outburst against the Sabres rather surprising. Especially since it came against Jhonas Enroth, a backup who was 6-0 on the season and 13-0-1 in the calendar year of 2011. Not to mention I can’t remember the last time the Devils’ offense erupted for five goals – perhaps last January when we had a couple of those games. Five different players scored, including our three key guys – Kovy, Zach Parise and Patrik Elias. Martin Brodeur also had a strong game in goal with 29 saves – many of the eye-popping variety – after going through a rare stretch of sitting two games in a row when healthy enough to play.

Another rarity for the Devils this season has been getting off to quick starts. Three times this season the Devils have had to rally from two goals down to win (all on the road), but tonight they were the agressors, jumping out to a two-goal lead inside of 5:21. Parise opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal just 2:06 into the game, when some tremendous work by Adam Henrique led to the Devils’ rookie centerman winning the puck away from two Sabres and getting it out to a wide-open Zach Attack in front, where Parise beat Enroth with a turnaround slapshot for his sixth goal of the season. Special teams continued to benefit the Devils early, as Kovy would also get on the board in his first game back, with a power play goal no less. Brodeur started the play in his own end with a long pass to Elias, who got the puck in the zone and fed Kovy, who finished the play off with a nice move to get around a defenseman and put a hard wrister past the Sabres’ goalie for just his third goal of the year.

After getting off to an early lead, the Devils looked like they were gearing up to run Buffalo out of their own building during the first fifteen minutes but back-to-back dumb penalties by Ryan Carter eventually cost New Jersey, with Tyler Myers of all people scoring on the second of those power plays at 18:56. The Sabres’ big young defenseman – who was recently scratched in part due to his lack of agressiveness when Miller went down – attacked the slot and beat Brodeur after Jason Pominville found him wide open in front. Myers continued to throw his weight around in the second period, hitting Danius Zubrus with what looked like an intentional head shot that amazingly went unpunished. Thankfully Zubrus was okay, on a night where the veteran winger would join a select group by playing his 1000th NHL game.

It was during the latter part of the first period and beginning of the second that the Sabres played some of their best hockey, but Brodeur held the fort until finally getting some offensive help from two of the younger Devils. Henrique won a faceoff in the offensive zone back to Mark Fayne, whose seeing-eye wrister beat Enroth at 8:36 for the defenseman’s third goal of the year (we have a defenseman that can score the occasional goal?! That concept’s been foreign around here for a while).

Despite the fact the Sabres got twelve shots in the second period and thirteen in the third, Brodeur kept them at arm’s length, and the Devils actually increased their lead early in the third when Elias scored his seventh goal, off a feed from Petr Sykora on a 3-on-2 at 3:09. Now up 4-1, and just when it looked like it was going to be an easy night, Myers again beat Brodeur – this time with a shortside goal at 7:35 to pull the Sabres back to within two. Just when the crowd started to get back in it though, Andy Greene alley-ooped a long pass to David Clarkson, who found himself on a breakaway and beat Enroth with a nifty backhand for his sixth goal of the year just forty-eight seconds after Myers had scored.

Up 5-2 with Brodeur in command, again it looked like it was going to be a rare laugher, and Lindy Ruff even waved the white flag a bit by removing Enroth for Drew McIntyre. However, on the tail end of a Devils power play with just a few minutes left in the game coach Pete DeBoer got too cute by putting the fourth line (and enforcer Cam Janssen) out on the ice, to try to give his regulars a shift off on the tail end of a fourth game in six nights. It wasn’t putting the fourth line out I had a problem with, since Buffalo initially matched up with Patrik Kaleta and the Sabres’ enforcers – but the minute the power play ended and Buffalo got their scorers on the ice, the Devils’ fourth line should have gone off too. However, Cam and company stayed out there and it was a Janssen turnover that led to Jordan Leopold scoring at 15:07 to again get the Sabres within two.

Despite some anxious moments toward the end however, the Devils did hang on for the two points and a 5-3 win, giving them their second win in three games on their brutal five-game swing. Their only loss came when they got nosed out by the defending Stanley Cup champs last night in an entertaining game – though I missed all but the last ten minutes of it since Tuesday’s free movie night for me and my friends – where Nick Palmeri of all people scored twice and Clarkson got one as well, but eventually the Bruins’ third-period assault finally beat an otherwise stellar Johan Hedberg. After the game Bruins’ coach (and ex-Devil coach) Claude Julien tweaked us a bit by suggesting we were playing for the tie, rather than trying to win. I guess it’s not possible for his own terrific team to dominate a third period at home without the other team sitting back, god knows his own team’s done that enough times.

There certainly was no sitting back tonight, much to the surprise of Pierre McGuire, who couldn’t stop gushing about our more agressive system. As much as Pierre loves the Devils (and particularly GM Lou Lamoriello), it is too bad VERSUS didn’t give us Doc Emrick doing the play-by-play for tonight’s game. Twice in two weeks, I’ve been hoping to see him on their telecasts and each time we’ve gotten a different group although at least pros Dave Strader and Ed Olcyzk are better than the immortal John Forslund-Keith Jones tandem that did last week’s Canes game. Not that I can complain about VERSUS with all the gaffes our own telecast has been coming up with this year. Thank goodness I’ve been at most of the home games and missed a lot of the road telecasts for different reasons.

If things aren’t the same in the booth, at least they’re getting closer to resembling the old days on the ice. At 9-7-2 however, there’s still a lot of work to do, with the Florida portion of our trip still upcoming before we return home next Wednesday.

Last night in Beantown, things got a bit chaotic between the Sabres and Bruins. During the first period, Milan Lucic collided with a scrambling Ryan Miller, who came out of his net to just beat the Boston power forward to a loose puck at the faceoff circle. Naturally, Miller and his teammates were incensed afterwards with the former Vezina winner having some harsh words for Lucic.

The question is was the two minute charge he received enough? In watching the video several times, Lucic is picking up steam on a mini-break when suddenly he looks up and sees Miller, who moved the puck. Was there enough time for him to avoid the goalie? Everyone knows Lucic plays a fierce game, bowling over anyone in his path. Should the Buffalo netminder be any different for wandering so far out of his crease? Was it a deliberate attempt to injure or was Miller in a prone position? Maybe a bit of both. We’ll have more insight tomorrow on the controversial hit.

Oh btw…the Sabres never responded, getting blitzed by the B’s 6-2.

After Friday’s 3-1 loss to the Caps in regulation and with the team falling in an early 2-0 hole last night, I was setting up to write another blog either during the game or this morning. One about how the Caps were showing us how far we were from being a good team, that wins over Winnipeg and Carolina were illusory, and the Caps games were providing a severe reality check. I was that convinced we were getting curbstomped last night. How could you not be, with the Caps’ talent compared to ours right now? Not to mention the fact we were outscored 5-0 from the first period Friday to the first period Saturday.

Yet, somehow for the third time this season we came back from down two on the road against a playoff team to take the mighty Caps to a shootout, where a surprising winner from David Clarkson gave the Devils an unexpected two points from the nation’s capital and our third road win this season whencoming from two goals behind. For whatever issues this team has right now, effort and resilience haven’t been among them. Neither has goaltending, as both Martin Brodeur and Johan Hedberg turned in strong performances against a terrific offense.

Granted, Friday we weren’t really outclassed per se, but with our offensive struggles you’re just not going to beat the Caps scoring one goal. Even with Brodeur looking strong in net until he got beat with a deflection by Alex Ovechkin late in the second period to tie the game then the Devils’ power play of doom cost the team in the third period when a Mattais Tedenby turnover and a bad line change by Clarkson led to Jason Chimera getting a one-on-one chance against Adam Larsson. Chimera deked out the rookie badly, and easily beat a helpless Brodeur for what turned out to be the winning goal. Though the Devils played well for forty minutes, for all intents and purposes the four minutes of power play time at the beginning of the period where we didn’t score and gave up a short-handed goal decided the game.

While the offense itself has been bad for a long time, it’s just unreal how bad the power play is. As of this point in the season (fifteen games) the Devils have five power play goals – while giving up three shorthanded ones. So basically the Devils have a net of two power play goals for the entire season. Some other teams can get two power play goals in a single game, as foreign as that concept seems to us. Funny how Kovalchuk’s misadventures at the point were dissected to kingdom com but without Kovy and Patrik Elias taking his place at the point, the power play has been just as bad…with Elias doing his best Kovy impersonation by slipping and losing the puck at the point constantly.

My mood Friday wasn’t helped by the two mongloids sitting behind me in 120 who were screaming nonsense the whole game, the Devil fan of the pair in particular was annoying – calling for the Moose after Brodeur gave up the shorthanded goal early in the third period, as if he was gonna stop the play once Chimera deked out Larsson and had all day in front? Not to mention later in the period when the same bozo said rather causally that ‘Kovy isn’t really hurt, he got tweaked up a little bit and DeBoer’s benched him the last couple games’. They weren’t the only clowns I had to deal with, walking back to Penn Station after the game and using the turnstile, some idiot decides to spin it around real fast – with me still in it. Thankfully I got out of there just in time and almost shot the guy a look but stopped myself and just did a slow burn.

I wonder if the goofball who wanted Moose was paying attention last night in the first period when Moose gave up two quick goals – one on an Adam Henrique turnover and the other by Chimera again, after the Caps showed us what an NHL power play was all about (though later the goal was ruled to have been scored a second after the power play ended, keeping our PK numbers near pristine). Not to mention the clowns who said we played better for Moose than we did for Marty, after Moose’s winning streak earlier in the year. All this conspired to put me in a bad mood and I was just hoping we would somehow find a way to win in Boston to avoid a three-game losing streak and slipping back under .500.

Then, strange things started to happen. Our defense stepped it up big-time, allowing the high-octane Caps a mere eight shots on goal after the first period, including two in the second period – while the Devils’ offense creeped back into the game. First, Elias and Petr Sykora turned back the clock to combine on another classic Sykie goal, with Elias winning the faceoff right onto Danius Zubrus‘s stick, and Zubrus quickly passed the puck back to Sykora for a one-timer, almost a carbon copy of Syk’s other goal this season. Sykora’s goal at 12:18 cut the deficit in half and gave the Devils momentum, but even then I wasn’t sure we could get a positive result out of this game. That is, until we got an unlikely contribution from our fourth line, with defenseman Bryce Salvador of all people finding Ryan Carter in the slot for an oddly perfect deflection past Michael Neuvirth at 18:54.

Though that goal was Carter’s first as a Devil, it needs to be said he’s had a positive impact since he’s gotten here, filling in at center and providing a touch of a physical presence…not to mention adding another capable penalty-killing forward on a unit that was already doing well. Still, when you get a rare goal from the fourth line you need to take advantage. And the Devils did, though at times it felt like the Caps dominated more in the third period than the 5-4 shot total indicated, the team did manage to overcome a late penalty on Zubrus to take the game into overtime. In OT, each goalie only had to face one shot but Hedberg’s save was a doozy, robbing Dennis Wideman with the glove on a wide-open one-timer. A Parise deflection got stopped by Neuvirth just before the buzzer, sending the game to a shootout.

Things began predictably with Hedberg stopping Matt Hendricks of all people, and Parise scoring first to give the Devils a 1-0 advantage. Ovechkin tied it with a wrister, and Henrique missed the net badly on his attempt (this was the same guy that scored two breakaways last Saturday?!). Hedberg then had to stop Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin to give the Devils a chance. After Elias got stopped himself, Pete DeBoer‘s next choice was an interesting one – Clarkson. With the number of important goals he’s scored already this year, including a breakaway against the Leafs, why not? Despite that and the fact he had converted on his only other shootout attempt, I was still surprised and amused that he wound up getting the winner, beating Neuvirth with a backhand deke.