AGAIN!!?? The Devils had yet another 2 goal lead on the Flyers and yet again blew it and lost the game 3-2. Luckily, they managed to squeeze out a point in this game before allowing the Flyers to win in OT. With the point, the Devils stay 1 point ahead of Pittsburgh for the division lead but that's really secondary at this point. I, like most fans are unhappy, frustrated and upset with this team at the moment. As I said the other day, I am looking forward to the Olympic Break because I am hoping it gives the Devils some time to regroup, well the ones not making the trip to Vancouver.

So news came down about 10 mins before the game that Parise was out with an upper body injury. It came out after the game that it wasn't anything serious and Parise expects to be in the game on Friday night. Searching the Internet it seems Team USA isn't worried about Parise at all, so I guess I shouldn't be either. Bryce Salvador left the game with a little over 5 minutes remaining in the first period after getting clipped with a high stick near the eye. Lemaire made it sound like he didn’t think Salvador’s injury was something that will keep him out for long.


The Devils got on the board early, 45 seconds in to be exact as Zajac took what looked to be a routine shot but trickled through the legs of Leighton and slowly crossed the goal line. Rob Niedermayer made it 2-0 at 8:01 when he threw a spinaround backhand in front from the bottom of the right circle that went off Leighton’s left pad and then deflected in off defenseman Kimmo Timonen’s left leg. Ex-Devil Arron Ahsam answered right back and cut the lead in half. Scott Hartnell nearly tied the game with a power play goal that had to be reviewed. I personally think it was over the line but there were no specific camera angles to prove it. Jeff Carter, who's been a Devils killer this week, tied the game at 2 in the second with a perfectly place wrist shot from the left side. Simone Gagne won the game in OT with a wrist shot from the slot as, who else, Jeff Carter created a screen in front of Marty.

The Devils were 0-3 on the powerplay and never looked very comfortable being on it. I felt throughout the game the Devils seemed to have this "get Ilya the puck at all costs" mentality and it isn't working. He's not scoring so he's getting frustrated. He's not scoring so the fans are getting frustrated. Actually, when we talk about offense and having the puck, I thought both teams were horrible at it. Passing once again proves to be a problem for the Devils.

I also think the Devils got beaten physically. I look at the Devils and think this team is really soft. Maybe that will change when Clarkson comes back and with Salvador out last night, that only increased the Devils softness. Good on Elias for hitting Gagne after the whistle. The Devils need to do more of that, stir things up a bit. I mean Carter has killed them this week and no one really put a body on him.

As always, here are the highlights if you missed the game:

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I think at this point, I am certainly looking forward to the Olympic break. I am hoping that for most of the Devils, this will be a chance to go home, take a breather and come back more focused on the tasks at hand. I don't get this team lately. We've brought an extremely talented snipper named Ilya Kovalchuk to the Devils and so far, it hasn't made an ounce of difference. I don't blame him, I can't blame him. Have you seen him play? Have you seen what he's capable of? Kovy had 24 mins of ice time and 9 shots on goal last night, other than actually scoring a goal, which will come, believe me they will come, what more can you ask him to do?

I actually thought this game was going to be different. The Devils got on the board first with a Zack Parise Powerplay goal that made Pronger look dumb. The Devils kept the pressure on and eventually got a second goal on the board when Anssi Salmela drove hard to the net. On that play, Jeff Carter put a shoulder hit on Salmela sending him to the ice very hard. He would end up leaving the ice on a stretcher but was later to be said up and walking. (I'll get more into that hit in a later post).

Once that happened, the Devils seemed to sit back. I'm not sure if it was the fact of being up 2-0 that made the Devils feel they could stop playing or maybe it was being down 1 D-man that really changed this game. Whatever it was, the Flyers took control of this game.

I'm sick of these game where the opposition scores and then seems to immediately score again. It happened in MSG on Saturday night and it happened again last night. In fact this is the fourth game in a row where the Devils gave up multiple goals in the second period. It looked as if the Devils might survive the injury and the second period up 2-0 but then James van Reimsdyk fired a nice shot past Marty. A few mins later, Pronger gathered a rebound and found Hartnell in the neutral zone with perfect pass. Mottau got himself committed to Hartnell and didn't pick up Carter sneaking into the zone and stayed in the middle of the ice allowing Hartnell to easily feed Carter who had a wide open net to fire it into. Didn't hurt that he's a right handed shot flying up the left side of the ice.

On the third and final goal, Mottau left his feet which allowed Timonen to setup behind the net. Mottau did get up but was beaten easily by Timonen pass which found Richards parked in front of the net...ALL ALONE.

There were a lot of breakdowns in this game. The Powerplay was awful even though they scored one. The Devils had so much trouble getting anything setup and how many times did Kovalchuk want to slap a one-timer and the pass to him was off?

This game was extremely frustrating and guess what, we get to do it all over again tomorrow night. no comments

I think at this point, I am certainly looking forward to the Olympic break. I am hoping that for most of the Devils, this will be a chance to go home, take a breather and come back more focused on the tasks at hand. I don't get this team lately. We've brought an extremely talented snipper named Ilya Kovalchuk to the Devils and so far, it hasn't made an ounce of difference. I don't blame him, I can't blame him. Have you seen him play? Have you seen what he's capable of? Kovy had 24 mins of ice time and 9 shots on goal last night, other than actually scoring a goal, which will come, believe me they will come, what more can you ask him to do?

I actually thought this game was going to be different. The Devils got on the board first with a Zack Parise Powerplay goal that made Pronger look dumb. The Devils kept the pressure on and eventually got a second goal on the board when Anssi Salmela drove hard to the net. On that play, Jeff Carter put a shoulder hit on Salmela sending him to the ice very hard. He would end up leaving the ice on a stretcher but was later to be said up and walking. (I'll get more into that hit in a later post).

Once that happened, the Devils seemed to sit back. I'm not sure if it was the fact of being up 2-0 that made the Devils feel they could stop playing or maybe it was being down 1 D-man that really changed this game. Whatever it was, the Flyers took control of this game.

I'm sick of these game where the opposition scores and then seems to immediately score again. It happened in MSG on Saturday night and it happened again last night. In fact this is the fourth game in a row where the Devils gave up multiple goals in the second period. It looked as if the Devils might survive the injury and the second period up 2-0 but then James van Reimsdyk fired a nice shot past Marty. A few mins later, Pronger gathered a rebound and found Hartnell in the neutral zone with perfect pass. Mottau got himself committed to Hartnell and didn't pick up Carter sneaking into the zone and stayed in the middle of the ice allowing Hartnell to easily feed Carter who had a wide open net to fire it into. Didn't hurt that he's a right handed shot flying up the left side of the ice.

On the third and final goal, Mottau left his feet which allowed Timonen to setup behind the net. Mottau did get up but was beaten easily by Timonen pass which found Richards parked in front of the net...ALL ALONE.

There were a lot of breakdowns in this game. The Powerplay was awful even though they scored one. The Devils had so much trouble getting anything setup and how many times did Kovalchuk want to slap a one-timer and the pass to him was off?

This game was extremely frustrating and guess what, we get to do it all over again tomorrow night. As always, if you missed the game, here are the highlights.

 

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I thought the effort made by the Devils last night against the Sabres was a million times better than the effort made the night before against the Senators. Actually, an average performace would have been welcomed last night over what was given to us on Tuesday night.

The Devils got chances last night and kept the pressure on for most of the game. As usual, I thought that Ryan Miller was excellent for the Sabres and is certainly the reason the Sabres stayed in the game. The Devils played a very clean game only taking one penalty, which I had to disagree with Jamie on, he did elbow Miller as he skated through the crease. The Devils penalty kill on that one penalty was fantastic and kept the Sabres scratching their head as their fans really got on their case.

Passing, which was down right awful on Tuesday was much better. Johnny Oduya made a nice heads up pass to a streaking Brian Rolston who found himself behind the Sabres D and took a nice low slapper that beat Miller above the pad and below the glove. (There was once a point in time we were complaining about Rolston right?!!)

The Devils defense did a nice job keeping the Sabres from sustaining any kind of pressure. The Sabres would come in the zone and get off a good shot or two, but then the Devils would clean up a loose puck or stop a pass or get a block and go turn the play up the other end of the ice.

The only point in which the Sabres were better was the shootout. Marty did a nice job on stopping Drew Stafford but then couldn't stop the next two shooters. Parise who I usually have no issues with seems to be stuck using the same move in every shootout. Miller did an excellent move to keep the leg down but part of me thinks he knew what Parise was going to do. Jamie's attempt wasn't any better.

I'll take the point, I always will. I would have prefered 2 but I thought the Devils played much better and that at least is a moral victory. The Leafs come into town tomorrow night which isn't the hardest matchup on the schedule and at a good time too.

As always. if you missed the game, watch the highlights here...

 

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I can't say that the Devils didn't work tonight because I thought overall they played a pretty good game. As I pointed out in my preview of the game, the Devils haven't been putting many pucks in the net and that trend continued tonight. If you discount the emptynet goal the other night, this is the 3rd straight that they don't score more than 1 goal in regulation. It's not that the oppurtunities weren't there, because they were . The Devils got 32 shots on Halak and 16 total scoring chances but credit Halak with a strong game.

Devils looked on fire out of the gate and Parise had a beauty of a goal as Langenbrunner hit Parise in stride. The Devils ended the period a little sloppy and allowed the Canadiens to get the equalizer. The Canadiens would take the lead in the 2nd on a nice tip and then get the insurance goal after a huge Devils swarm in the 3rd.

Fraser had a hell of a fight trying to create a spark for the Devils.  I don't think D'Agostini knew what kind of guy Fraser was because he was clearly overmatched.

January is shaping up to be a month I think I'd like to forget. They are 5-5 in the 10 games played so far this month but they've lost 4 of the last 5 and have a tough matchup this week with a very good Sabres team.

NJ heads to the Island tomorrow night for a rematch of Monday afternoon. I hope they show up for this one. Not sure the Devils change their gameplan from tonight, they just need to figure out how to get the puck in the net. The are certainly all kinds of slumps throughout the season and the Devils scoring is certainly something that is always a victim of that. Eventually the goals will come again, we just have to weather the storm while the Devils struggle in the goal department for now. As for the powerplay, we won't even get into that catastrophe right now.

 

 

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The Devils that took the ice against the Panthers were a very different team than the one we watched Monday afternoon. The effort that the Devils put on the ice was exactly what they needed to snap a 3 game skid. It wasn't a perfect effort but it was good enough and something to build on as the get ready for the Canadiens tomorrow night.

When the Devils skated off the ice after the 1st period tied at 0-0, I think most fans collectively took a deep breathe. The first hurdle in this game was to make it through the first period and not find themselves in this huge hole that had certainly become the trend during the 3 game skid. In the 2nd period, the Devils were getting loads of chances but not finding the back of the net and as the clock clicked down, I was afraid that a 0-0 tie after two might be too frustrating to the Devils but thankfully at 18:30 of the second, Zajac took a nice feed from Parise and beat Vokoun. Nick Palmieri, who was making his NHL debut, earned an assist, his first NHL point on the goal.

The defense had a much better game and Marty, whose recent workload has been something that has worried me, didn't have to make too many saves last night (22) and none of them were very difficult. The one thing that stands out to me about the defense is that they didn't make the obvious mistakes and if the Panthers were making a move, another Devil would recover and help out and end any threat the Panthers were making.

I'm still not happy with the passing but even with that said, the Devils got their chances. They took a total of 32 shots on goal and ended the game with a 2-0 win but I think that score favors the Panthers because Vokoun worked the entire game. If it weren't for Vokoun, this could have easily been a blow out. The Devils tried to switch up the types of shots they fired at Vokoun and Lemaire must have been preaching, "get the puck on net" because that is exactly what they were doing. The offense was threatening all night, something that the Devils offense has lacked over recent games.

Nick Palmieri certainly was entertaining and I thought a good call up. Patrick Davis was decent as well but of the two, I thought Palmieri had the better game. I thought both of them injected energy into this team that had been flat for a few games. I don't see any reason why the two of them shouldn't stick around for a few games.

The losing streak is over and the Devils should feel good about the performance given last night. The Canadiens come into town tomorrow night and then back to Long Island on Saturday night for what I hope is not a repeat of Monday afternoon.

If you missed the game of want to see highlights, watch the following video...

 

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In another quick story I wanted to touch on was the thoughts I had posted the other day about Patrice Cormier. The ruling on his suspension is coming down on Monday and I found out yesterday afternoon that apparently there is a rule in the AHL that if you are suspended for the rest of the season in any other league, you are basically inelligible to play in the AHL but that rule isn't cut and dry. AHL Commissioner David Andrews reviews all cases and can decide if he wants to allow a suspended player to play in his league. It seems like a huge hurtle because I can't figure out why Andrews would want a guy who just took a play out of the Hanson Brothers play book. So, should Cormier get suspended for the rest of the season, which logicall should be the case, it would appear to me that his career would be on hold until September.

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SMOKED!!! That's the word I would use to describe what the Islanders did to the Devils yesterday afternoon. This is the first time this season that the Devils have a 3 game losing streak where all three games were lost in regulation, so some people may say I am being too hard on them but this type of play can't continue.

Whenever the shot totals for the other team are more than double what you put on the board, that screams to me that you are playing too much in your own zone. The Islanders outshot NJ 46 to 20 yesterday and out played them in ever aspect of the game.

NJ found themselves in a quick hole for the third game in a row and this time it happened really quickly, finding themselves down 2-0 before the first 5 mins of the game had been played. The Devils took far too many penalties, which in return never allowed their offense to gain momentum. The passing was terrible throughout the game and the Devils were unable to really have any type of quality scoring chance. At the end of the 2nd, the Islanders scored another 2 goals in a 3 minute span and put the game out of reach.

Denis replaced Marty for the 3rd and stopped all 14 shots that came his way but the offense didn't even show up for this game. The Devils now sit 3rd in the conference and 4 points ahead of Pittsburgh in the Atlantic Division. Devils should get a workout in practice today as Lemaire tries to wake this team up and get them ready for the Panthers tomorrow night.

In other News:

Patrik Elias - There is very little news on Elias as of this morning. Devils are still saying he will be evaluated this week and then move on from there. Elias remains home resting with a suspected concussion and neck injury, but Lamoriello still won’t use the word concussion. He did say that Elias would be examined by a specialist but wouldn't elaborate on the type of specialist Elias would be seeing.

Patrice Cormier - There was lots of buzz around the net and hockey media yesterday concerning the hit that Patrice Cormier of the QMJHL (Devils 2008 2nd Round Pick) put on Quebec Remparts defenseman Mikael Tam. I'm not sure what Cormier was thinking but you can see him come off the bench and go right after the guy with the puck. (I don't think he was targeting Tam, I think he was targeting whoever had the puck). The video was certainly disturbing and their was a lot of anger about the hit and a lot of anger at Lou because Lamoriello does not believe that criminal charges or a suspension for the remainder of the season are warranted for the elbow. There was a lot of discussion about whether or not this play would impact his pro career.

I don't agree with the decision he made but at the same time, I don't think it will impact his career one bit. Should the QMJHL suspend him for the rest of the season, I do believe you will find Cormier in a Lowell Devils uniform rather quickly. He's an extremely talented young hockey player and I believe that the Devils organization won't allow him to sit idle for the next X amount of months because of a suspension. no comments

That was quite the game last night at MSG and the credit really only belongs to Lundqvist and Brodeur. Marty was a little better than Lundqvist, who belive it or not has never shutout the Rangers at MSG in the regular season until last night and was the first time he's had to make 50 saves in a shutout. I actually thought the Rangers looked better throughout more of the game than the Devils did and the Rangers rocked the Devils in the faceoff circle, winning 64% of the faceoffs.

The Good:

* Marty and his 51 saves, some of them being extremely hard and getting very lucky on some of them (Gaborik in the OT).
* The Devils did a decent job with Gaborik limiting him to 5 shots on goal for the night.
* Devils were able to get a good number of shots (45) on Lundqvist
* Patrik Elias continues to be money in the shootout but makes one wonder why we keep leaving him out of the top 3 shooters.
* Only took 2 penalties all night and Parise HAD to commit a penalty when he did.

The Bad:

* The Devils defense didn't do a good job with much as they let the Rangers pile on 51 shots on Marty.
* Devils wasted a 5 on 3, even though they got a few shots off.
* Passing all night was atrocious
* Devils didn't sustain any kind of pressure and many of their offensive attacks came inconsistently.
* 3 periods done, 96 shots on the board and ZERO goals.

The Final Thought

The Devils didn't play great and the Rangers didn't play much better but where better than the Devils. Both goalies were phenomenal and this is a big win for NJ because it comes against the Rangers in MSG. Coyotes play host to NJ tomorrow night in a game I hope Denis gets to play.

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Being that I am the only writer on this site, weekends are hard for me to keep up with so Monday Mornings are my time to review the weekend that was and this weekend was certainly a wild weekend for the Devils.

Friday night: The Lightning were really giving the Devils are rough time and weren't allowed to let the Devils sweep the season series when all of the sudden...



No one could fix the lights issue so the game would be postponed.

Saturday Night: The Devils travel to Montreal and I thought both teams played a really good game, hard fought and didn't make a ton of mistakes. The OT period was certainly something to enjoy and sometimes your team gets a little lucky. With just over 2;30 to go in the OT, Parise is forced to go get a new stick from the bench which just happens to put him at center ice by himself and Zajac gets the puck to him and he scores on a pretty nifty backhand. Doc's call was on for the ages...



Sunday Evening: Time to finish the Lightning game but a 3-0 hole is too big a hole to climb out of with the time remaining. Credit NJ for making a game of it but lost 4-2 in the end.

Rangers up next, tomorrow night to be exact. no comments

Devils Win and Parise snapped his 12 game goal drought. That's all that you need to know right now. Full recap coming later!!

 

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