The Matchup: New Jersey Devils (9-4-0) vs New York Islanders(5-5-5). This is the first meeting of the season. The Devils won the series matchup last season 4-2 and outshot the Islanders by a large margin of 226-177.

Last Devils Game: After what I thought was a slow first two periods by both teams, the Devils, specifically Niklas Bergfors, kicked it into high gear and scored 2 PPG's and held off the Ovechkin-less Washington Capitals 3-2 for only their 2nd home victory this season. Marty looked pretty good against Washington.

Last Islanders Game: The Sabres outworked about outplayed the Islanders and shutout the Islanders 3-0 ending the nice run that the Islanders were putting together. Face-offs were key in this game, an area I thought the Islanders were doing well in this season.

Tonight's Matchup: Let's start with who is in. Does the name Patrick Elias sound familiar? Yup, that's right, good ol' #26 makes his season debut tonight. Marty sits in favor of Yann Denis facing his old team and the first game of a back to back weekend (Devils travel to Ottawa tomorrow). Rob Niedermayer will miss this weekends game due to an "Upper Body Injury" suffered Wednesday night.

Who's Hot: Niklas Bergfors is coming off his first multi-point game and Travis Zajac has 13 points over the last 12 games. With 43 shots in 13 games, Bergfors is second among rookies to John Tavares (48 shots), who has played two more games. Speaking of Tavares, he is having an extremely productive rookie campaign, as is expected, scoring 5 goals and 11 points in 14 games for the Islanders. He did, however, see his four-game point-scoring streak (2 goals, 2 assists) come to an end on Wednesday in a 3-0 loss to the Sabres.

A few key injuries on the Devils roster has me a little worried that Tavares mught get the time he needs out there to be a thorn in the side of the Devils. Hopefully, Denis understands the Islanders methodology and can shut them down. Should be an interesting game.

For some insight to the Islanders view of this game, head over to our friends at the Islanders Hockey Blog

More important to me than the World Series, the Devils won at home last night. Who am I kidding, even if they lost it would still be more important to me than what happened in that other sport. The Devils improve their home record to 2-4-0 by knocking off the Capitals 3-2 but honestly, I thought the effort was kind of flat.

The first period got off to an extrememly slow start and the Caps outshot NJ 11-6 and took a 1-o lead off of Tyler Sloan's goal. The way the Devils played in the first reminded me of how the Devils played in the first period the last time these two team met. Just like the first meeting, Brian Rolston would knock a puck in the net that brought NJ back into the game, except that in the first game it cut the deficit in half where as this one tied the game and this goal was nothing but pure luck and I really can't give any credit to Rolston for the goal except that he was the last Devil to touch it. In the second, the Devils outshot the Caps 11-6 and got a goal so now through 2 periods, both teams weren't thrilling me, shots were even at 17 and the score was tied at 1. I figured this game was just going to find its way to a shootout like the first meeting did. In steps Niklas Bergfors.

I'm not sure what was said in the locker room after the second period, maybe talk about only wanting to play 60 minutes and nothing more because the Devils came out in the 3rd and dominated the beginning part of the period. The Capitals committed 4 minor penalties in the 3rd and the Devils capitalized on 2 of those chances. Parise was in great position on a nice old style PP rush up the ice and found Bergfors for the go ahead goal, his first PP goal. The Caps found themselves in the box again and it was Bergfors (after lengthy reviews by the scoring judge) who was credited with the redirection past the Caps goalie.

The Devils seem to slack off a little which let Washington get back to within 1 of the Devils but eventually they shut the door, took the 2 points and called it a night.

I was certainly impressed with Bergfors tonight and I am glad he's making the best of his oppurtunity with the Devils. He did look a little lost in the very beginning of the season but call that inexperience because now, he is playing like he belongs. Marty has looked better and better each game but that won't stop me from wishing to see Denis a little more this season.

Devils get ready to host the Islanders, who have been on a streak to the Rock on Friday night. This will be the first look at John Tavares in the regular season. Rumor is Elias might be back. Rob Niedermayer left the game in the 3rd period last night with an Upper Body Injury" and we hope its nothing serious but will await more information today.

 

The Matchup: New Jersey Devils (8-4-0) vs Washington Capitals (8-2-4). This is the second meeting this season between the two teams. Washington sits in 1st in the SouthEast division, 6pts ahead of Tampa Bay and the Devils sit in 3rd place in the Atlantic Division, 3 points behind the New York Rangers.

Last Devils Game: They pretty much out-did everything the Tampa Bay Lightning did but couldn't find a way to put up more goals on them. It took a shootout and a David Clarkson backhand in the shootout to grab the win on the road.

Last Capitals Game: Columbus knocked off the Capitals 5-4 in OT but that wasn't the bad news. The Capitals lost Alexander Ovechkin to an injury and is slated as "week-to-week."

Last Devils / Capitals Game: This game, that took place in Washington saw the Capitals get out to an early 2-0 lead in the first before watching the Devils storm back and eventually get goals from Jamie Langenbrunner and Zach Parise in the shootout to seal their third straight road victory.

Tonight's Matchup: Lets begin with who's in and who's out. As mentioned above, Ovechkin will not be in the lineup for tonight's game. Patrik Elias, who began skating with the team this week will not get the green light for tonight's game and Matt Halischuk has been recalled from Lowell for tonight's game which makes it seem that Andrew Peters will once again take his familiar seat above the press box.

The Devils need to approach this game as if it were a road game. NJ is perfect on the road and awful at home. I don't know why and I don't think NJ knows why they can't seem to win games at home but whatever it is they do away from The Rock, they need to do that tonight.

I would imagine that the Capitals will want to come out firing on all cylinders tonight. They need to make up for no AO, they are coming off an OT loss against the Blue Jackets at home and their defense is giving up 30+ shots a game. This is a team that's supposed to have a very good season and contend for the cup but the few games I watched of them this season, I felt at little less than ethusiastic about them.

Lou Lamoriello will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this weekend in the builders category. For those who don't know what it is, the builders' category includes coaches, general managers, commentators, team owners and others who have helped build the game. When it comes to success in the NHL, the New Jersey Devils over the last 20 years are one of the few teams the NHL can look at and call a "Model Franchise."

In April 1987, then-Devils owner John McMullen appointed Lou Lamoriello president of the New Jersey Devils. Lamoriello named himself general manager just before the start of the next season, a move that surprised many NHL observers. He had never played, coached or managed in the NHL, and was virtually unknown outside the New England college hockey community. Lou has done a fantastic job for this organization since the day he got here. In his first season as GM, the Devils notched their first winning season in franchise history (dating back to their time as the Kansas City Scouts [1974–76] and the Colorado Rockies [1976–82]) and reached the Wales Conference Finals. They have made the playoffs in all but two of his 20 seasons as GM and appeared in the Stanley Cup finals in 1995 (won), 2000 (won), 2001 (lost), and 2003 (won). Jeff Vanderbeek bought the Devils in 2004 but has wisely left the Devils' operations in Lamoriello's hands.

With the way salaries and team payrolls spiraled out of control in the early 2000's, which eventually led to the 2005 lockout, Lou Lamoriello never changed his views on player contract negotiations. He takes a hard nosed approached to this and believes in paying a third-line player as much as a first-line player if he feels they have the same value to the team. While some players have opted to leave the organization for bigger paychecks, a number of players seem to agree with Lamoriello's views, especially those who always find their way back to wearing a Devils uniform. When it comes to the NHL draft, he's drafted some guys that have gone on to become NHL superstars (Broduer, Guerin and Niedermayer just to name a few). He's also gone and found players that somehow missed getting drafted into the NHL and turned them into some of the league's most respected players (Madden and Rafalski). Lou also has a knack at finding guys in free agency who fly under the radar of other GM's but become important pieces in the Devils organization.

Lamoriello's time in NJ hasn't been without controversy though. It's no secret that Lou has been through a number of head coaches during his time here, even taking over the coaching duties himself twice but Lou knows what he wants out of his coaches and if they aren't getting the job done Lou will do whatever needs to be done in order to get the job done. There's no better example of that than the Spring of 2000 when Lou fired Robbie Ftorek with 8 games left and turned the team over to Larry Robinson who went on to bring home the Devils second Stanley Cup.

I was too young to understand the business of hockey back in 1987 but whatever it was that John McMullen saw in Lou Lamoriello, I am certain thankful he saw it. Lou has many admirers throughout the league but despite all the accolades from his peers, Lamoriello insists that his success is not about him, but rather a collaborative effort from everyone in the organization. I thought Brian Burke said it best in an interview about Lou. "They're people I owe professionally and people that I owe personally, but there is probably nobody I owe in both areas of my life as much as I owe Lou Lamoriello. The influence he has had as a coach and as a mentor on my life has been tremendous."

Congratulations Lou, this is a WELL deserved honor and as a Devil fan, I thank you for the passion you put into this team and making the fans feel like every season the Devils have a chance at the cup because of the product you put on the ice.

The NJ Devils are off to their best start ever when talking about playing games away from the Prudential Center. They are currently 7-0 and only the Buffalo Sabres of 2006-2007 did better then they won 10 games on the road to start a season.

Now, how do they do what they are doing away from NJ while they are in NJ? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. One could say that they are playing better teams at home than on the road but that's not very accurate. Yes, they've beaten Tampa Bay twice and a depleted Boston Bruins sqaud but they also knocked of Washington, NY Rangers and Pittsburgh in these 7 games. If the Devils are going to be succesful, they will need to start looking better at home. It's cliche to say but its alway very accurate.

The task of winning at home doesn't get off to an easy start on Wednesday as they host one of the conferences best teams, the Washington Capitals, who oh by the way have the leagues scoring leader (if his injury from yesterday isn't too severe) and then host the Islanders who, every time I watch, seem to look better and better.

The good news we got this morning was that Patrik Elias was one the ice practicing with his teammates for the first time this season. We knew this was coming because Matt Halischuk was a healthy scratch on Saturday afternoon against the Lightning and then was sent to Lowell (AHL) on Sunday. I don't think Elias would be available to play against the Capitals on Wednesday but I have to believe he's close to returning and maybe he'd do so this weekend. Elias skated with center Travis Zajac and right winger David Clarkson for this practice session, which is a line I would like to see him on.

There's no word on Johnny Oduya other than that "he's close" and a "maybe" for Wednesday nights game. Jamie Langenbrunner also missed practice but its believed he's not injured but just needed a rest.

I decided to change the way I do my weekly report on the Devils. Instead of giving out letter grades each week, I am going to track whether or not the trend of their play has been up or down this week. I just felt that letter grades weren't flowing as well because what was an A for one player was a B for some others.

M. Brodeur		Had a great game in Pittsburgh and followed it up with a pretty bad outing at home. The Buffalo loss wasn't completely his fault
Y. Danis		An excellent start to his career in NJ against the Bruins. I hope the confidence he showed in net on Thursday tells NJ to use him more than we've used our backups in the past.
R. Niedermayer		Didn't get a point this week, was robbed by Miller on a goal Wednesday night but he seems to be doing the right things out there.
R. Pelley		4th line = not still not so good.
T. Zajac		A 2 point night in Pittsburgh followed up by goose eggs against Buffalo and Boston. I am looking for a little more consistency out of this guy.
D. Zubrus		Points in 2 of the last 3 (and 3 of the last 4) including the GWG in Boston.
P. Elias	-	Injured, hopefull will practice with the team in the upcoming week.
J. Pandolfo		Got injured against the Pens and will be out 4-6 weeks.
Z. Parise		He's a points machine and I know I can't count on him for something every single night.
A. Peters		Why is this guy here? Spent most of the week as a healthy scratch but played in Boston, didn't do much.
N. Bergfors		I was a sell on this guy but he's starting to looking more comfortable at the NHL level. Got a couple of points, made some nice plays and the kid certainly has some wheels.
D. Clarkson		Picked up a couple of assists in Pittsburgh and then looked lost against the Sabres. I would have given him the red arrow but he got an important goal Thursday in Boston.
M. Halischuk		No points, don't hear his name much, not sure what to think. Maybe Holik should give him a buzz and tell him what wearing #16 is all about. Wait, no PIMs yet, put down the phone Bobby, put down the phone.
J. Langenbrunner		Seems to be good for an assist a game, I'd like goals but points are points and I expect my first liners to get them night in and night out.
P. Letourneau-Leblond		Doesn't have a point but I prefer this guy over Peters. Lemaire seems to swap those two but I am hoping that Lemaire gets on the PLx3 bandwagon soon.
I. Pikkarainen		4th liner, not doing anything in my opinon.
B. Rolston		Can someone explain this guy to me? $5 million a year, has 0 points this week, can't seem to finish plays that are handed to him and he can't find his way off the third line. Maybe he should sell hot dogs at the home games, this way NJ can get some kind of ROI.
M. Fraser		Played his first game against Pitt, got his first goal which also happened to be the first goal by a NJ D-man this year
A. Greene		Was the man this week. Only bright spot against the Sabres and picked up asists in the other games (and I thought for a brief moment he had a goal in Pitt, not Bergfors).
P. Martin		Got hurt against the Pens, like Pando, out 4-6 weeks. This one is going to hurt.
M. Mottau		Missed the Pens game due to injury but came back with 19 mins against Buffalo and 26 mins against Boston
C. Murphy		Hit waivers, then went to Lowell, then came back when Martin went down only to find himself sitting above the press box.
J. Oduya		Like Rolston, I am down on this guy. Huge contract, ZERO contribution and now he's come home to NJ after an injury against Boston and won't play in TB on Saturday.
B.Salvador		Seems to be doing what a d-man should, picked up an assist in Boston.
C. White		In my opinion he becomes the number 1 guy while Martin is down. He should think so to and maybe then he'll actually play like it.

My "Player of the Week" award goes to: Andy Greene (Parise can't win EVERY week!!)

In the beginning of the game, the Devils looked like a much different team than the one we watched on Wednesday night. The moved their feet and they created some good chances and pretty much took it to the Bruins early. I guess the Bruins felt the same way because that didn't happen in the 2nd and 3rd periods. For the most part I thought Boston played a better game but overall I thought the game was a little sloppy in the later periods.

Yann Denis did an outstanding job in net, like he did in the preseason. I hope the confidence that he showed in net leads Lemaire to use him more than the Devils have used past backups. I thought his positioning all night was incredible and the one goal that Boston was able to get by him really wasn't his fault.

Even though I felt that it was a sloppy game for the most part, it was a tight and exciting game as well. With the score tied 1-1 with just under 2 minutes to play, Parise tried to redirect a Langenbrunner shot that snuck between the legs of Tim Thomas and a crashing Zubrus was able to sneak behind Thomas and stick it home. It was a very heads up play by Zubrus and he started crashing the net at the right moment. It may not be the prettiest goal but it was certainly a clutch goal.

A down note is that Oduya left the game in the second period with a lower body injury. He mention after the game that it happened on the last shift in the first period and felt best to take himself out of the game. Yes its true that Oduya hasn't been able to find his way into the scoring sheets but with Martin out for 4 weeks, losing Oduya for a prolonged period of time isn't something I want to think about. We aren't sure if he made the trip to Tampa of returned home, I am sure we will find out more later today.

So the Devils keep their perfect road record intact and head on down to Tampa Bay for a matchup on Halloween afternoon.

The great thing about games on back to back nights is that when you don't play well the first night, you can quickly put that behind you instead of dwelling on it for a few days. The Devils take their show back on the road, which is a perfect 5-0 so far this season.

The Matchup - New Jersey Devils (6-4-0) vs Boston Bruins (5-4-1). This is the first meeting of the season. The two teams were 2-2 against each other last season.

Last Devils Game - They were outplayed last night by the Buffalo Sabres and lost by a score of 4-1. Martin Brodeur stopped 23 of 27 shots he faced and the Devils were able to get 32 shots on net after getting off to a slow start. The Devils dropped to 1-4 at home this season.

Last Bruins Game - The Bruins took on the Ottawa Sentaors on Saturday night (nice to see NJ isn't the only team with multiple days off).  They were down 3-1 until the final 1:28 of the third period when the Bruins got things going their way by scoring 2 quick goals and ended up winning in a shootout.

Game Thoughts - Marty Brodeur sits tonight which means we get our first glimpse of Yann Danis in the regular season. What we saw of him in the preseason was something to like so lets hope 10 games of sitting on the bench hasn't made him rusty. Andrew Peters will get to play tonight while Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond (always a mouthful...that's what she said!!), who played in last nights game, gets to sit this one out. Even though the Devils defense didn't have the best night last night, Lemaire is sticking with the same 6 guys and the same pairings as last night, which means Cory Murphy gets to sit this one out again.

The Bruins have been on a tear lately when it comes to the penalty kill but special teams isn't NJ's strong suit. The Bruins have a couple of key injuries in Milan Lucic and Marc Savard but we have to remember big man Zdeno Chara is back on the blue just waiting to rip one of his slapshots past Denis. If the Devils are going to win tonight, they need to move their feet the entire game, cycle the puck and get some traffic in front of Thomas (are you listening David Clarkson??) and put 100% effort in 100% of the time.

Tonight's Enemy Blog - Something's Bruin, go visit him for thoughts from the Bruins side to this game although he's talking about a style we played more than a decade ago. Seriously, he's a good guy so go give him some hits.

I agree with the post game comments made by Jaques Lemaire. The Devils didn't put forth an acceptable level of effort. "I know the games we played here were [against] good teams, but still I’m looking at the effort overall. The effort overall has got to be better. We said all along that there’s parity in the league and if you’re not playing 60 minutes, you’re in trouble. You look at Buffalo, they played pretty much 60 minutes. They didn’t look as good when we were at our best, but they just kept playing." The Devils did just this in their game against the Penguins on Saturday Night and easily rolled out of town with 2 points under their belt. Tonight, I'm not sure what happened.

The Devils looked flat in the first period and within 6 minutes, the Devils were in a 2-0 hole. The first goal that the Sabres scored was a decent looking goal but the second by Kennedy was 3-ply soft. Make no mistake about it though, the Devils looked much better in the second period. They were moving their legs and cycling the puck very well. Andy Greene made a nice play, sneaking into position on the PP and wrisitng one over Ryan Miller's shoulder to cut the defecit in half. The Devils kept a little pressure on the rest of the period and Ryan Miller bailed out the Sabres a few times to help keep their lead.

The third period I thought the Devils made a few too many mistakes, including another "Too Many Men" penalty and just never looked very hungy until it was 3-1 and Miller made an incredible stop on Niedermayer.

I'm not trying to take anything away from the Sabres. They are a deep team with a lot of offensive power, they forecheck very well and they have a guy in between the pipes that makes up for mistakes made by his teammates. I just think that if NJ played the entire game, the results would have been different.

I'm still on Brian Rolston's case. He had 6 shots last night and nothing to show for it. He got a great feed from Oduya and couldn't finish it and in my opinion, when you pay a guy as much as we do Rolston, he has to finish those. I don't understand the problem with Rolston. Last year, we said it was his ankle and Brent Sutter but now he plays for the guy he loves to play for and just doesn't seem to do any better.

The Devils need to figure it out in a hurry as they head up to Boston to take on the Bruins tonight (preview coming later). Hopefully Saturday's crew shows up and leaves last nights crew in NJ.

Save of the Night goes to Ryan Miller with his stop on Niedermayer late in the game.

 

It seems like a common complaint coming from my mouth lately but the Devils schedule just seems to have large gaps of days with nothing going on. Of course, now that I complain about it again, you'll notice the Devils have 3 games over the next 4 days and tonight's game has a slew of activities for fans.

Lets get to the activities first...It's Mystery Puck night which means you can buy a puck at the stadium tonight for $25 (proceeds go to Unicef). Every puck is guaranteed to be signed by a Devils player or coach and will be individually wrapped (I bet they look like Ding Dongs) so the identity remains a surprise until after purchase. It's also "College Night" which means discounted tickets for college students (and lots of drunk rowdy fans!!) and if that wasn't enough, if you show up tonight in a costume, you can enter the Annual Devils Halloween Costume Contest and winners will get...wait for it....tickets to a Miley Cyrus concert at The Rock in November, or if you're like me you can choose a catered Devils Suite for a Devils home game for 20 people. OK, on to some pre-game hockey talk...

The Matchup - New Jersey Devils (6-3-0) vs Buffalo Sabres (6-1-1). This is the first meeting of the season between the two teams.

Last Game - The Devils rolled into Pittsburgh on Saturday night, stomped all over the defending champs and left the igloo with a 4-1 win for their 3rd win in a row but comes at a price as Martin and Pandolfo both go down with injuries. The Sabres come to NJ on the way back home after a successful 2 game sweep against the Florida teams.

Game Thoughts - Martin is going to be a big loss over the next few weeks but as I said the other day, it could have been worse for him and we could be throwing around the words surgery and months out of the lineup. Mike Mottau will jump back into the lineup after missing the Penguins game due to injury but as of yesterday, the Devils were still being very tight lipped about the defense-man taking Martin's roster spot. Pandolfo is also a significant injury tonight because he's one of the Devils best checking forwards and Buffalo is a very deep team but from reports on other sites, the Devils players understand they need to overcome these injuries and not let them ruin what they've accomplished so far. Marty is rumored to be the starter tonight but there is also a rumor that Denis will get to start in one of the next 3 games. I fear with the loss of their number one D man and the fact that Buffalo is a really good forechecking team, the Devils defense might feel reason to try and sit back a little more than normal tonight which could cause Marty (or Denis) to see a large amount of shots. Ryan Miller is an excellent goalie but the Devils have put 3 and 4 goals on Lundqvist and Marc Andre Fluery over the last two games. With that said, the Sabres do scare me a little bit and we all know the Devils have been a little less than stellar at home so far this season.

Enemy Blog For Tonight's Game - Double Edged Sabres