Life in a post-Marty world

November 5, 2008   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

With the news coming down yesterday that Devils icon Martin Brodeur will miss at least the next 3-4 months due to injury, many questions now surround the team.  To wit:

A) Will they acquire a goaltender to at least share some of the load with Kevin Weekes?  Possibly, since Scott Clemmensen is not an NHL-caliber goalie and odds are he – or whoever’s backing up Weekes – will have to play at least 8-10 games.  After all, Weekes has started six games in twenty-two months.  It’s unrealistic to expect him to rip off a Marty-like streak of 29 starts in 30 games, especially given his own recent injury issues - he missed most of the last half of 2006-07 for the Rangers and unbeknownst to him played through a similar injury to Marty’s during 2007-08. 

If the Devils make any trade for a goalie at all look for a stopgap option like Johan Hedberg or (shudder) Martin Gerber to back up Weekes.  The bigger-name goalies on the market such as Nikolai Khabibulin and Dwayne Roloson really aren’t that much better than Weekes anyway and would take too much cap room, even with half the Devils’ roster currently on LTIR.  Plus they would expect to start half or more of the games, so I doubt the Devils would make a big splash for a goaltender, especially if Marty is indeed back by early-late February and if Weekes proves he’s still a quality NHL goalie.

B) Will Lou make any other improvements to the team (say adding onto the offense or a D-man) to compensate for not having Marty and the recent spate of injuries?  I doubt it, especially since we seem to be an organization that’s become allergic to finding a way to improve the offense – Brian Rolston signing notwithstanding. 

Plus there just aren’t enough trading chips right now with all the injuries, some of the few trading chips we have (say, Petr Vrana or Niklas Bergfors) are in the lineup now as it is.  Granted they’re not playing very much but trading forwards off the active roster won’t solve much and with so many people up here, there once again is a lack of Lowell farmhands to use in trade. 

C) Assuming the roster pretty much stays as is, what’s the short and long-term prognosis for the Devils?  That’s the great unknown, nobody knows.  It’s been a long time since the Devils have had a look at post-Marty life.  Brodeur missed two weeks in 2005-06 due to a knee injury and the results were mixed, with Clemmensen going 2-2-2 but struggling in his last few games. 

Since then the D’s lost Brian Rafalski and has a diminished Colin White, while the offense has lost Scott Gomez and has a diminished Patrik Elias and Brian Gionta.  At least Weekes is an upgrade now over Clemmensen then but it’s long been suspected that the Devils – especially the last two years – were a non-playoff team carried there by Marty’s brilliance.  One thing’s for sure, the rest of the walking wounded (Rolston, Paul Martin – who will also miss tonight’s game, etc) better get back asap or the Devils aren’t a playoff team no matter who the goalie is.

D) Will the Devils Legion (a.k.a the fanbase) completely implode?  Early returns were not promising, as the Devils barely cracked 10,000 in attendance for Monday’s game against the Sabres, the first of what is now many without their franchise goalie.  With ticket prices being the highest in the league, don’t look for weekday numbers to be much better from here in and quite possibly worse tonight. 

But in some respects it might actually energize the die-hards now that the Devils (particularly Weekes) are in a relatively new role of underdog.  Weekes got a healthy ovation when he was announced and cheers throughout for his brilliant performance Monday.  Of course that won’t last if he suddenly starts giving up 3-4 goals a game.  

Not to mention it should be a huge wakeup call for spoiled fans who feel that it’s our entitlement to make the playoffs every year like one co-worker who is a Devils fan and was actually glad to hear about the Marty injury because in his words, ‘at least he’ll be rested for the playoffs’.  All you need to do is watch the Mets or the Jets – like I do - to not take the playoffs for granted. 

In any case, the answers start tonight when the Devils host the Lightning.