Hockey ebbs and flows

December 9, 2008   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

There are some weeks where you almost look forward to the team having a couple days off – the week (Nov. 8 – Nov. 15) where we played five times in eight days, losing the first four and barely winning the last game against the Caps comes to mind as a brutal stretch.  And having days off helps injured players get back with missing fewer games.  Plus when you have a two-week road trip, it does help to space the games out.  Of course it also helps the bottom line for teams like the Devils, who don’t typically draw well early in the season – or a cynic might say, in the middle and the end as well.

But these latest gaps between Devils games are driving me batty.  New Jersey’s played only five times in the last eighteen days, and seven times in the last 24.  If anything’s boring about the Devils right now it’s all this downtime.  Especially with the team playing as well as it has the last couple weeks, and now that almost all the injured players are back you kinda want to keep momentum going.

With the long layoffs, there is less news to actually report – but no news is good news for the Devils, who almost have a healthy lineup now, with the exceptions of defenseman Andy Greene and of course goaltender Martin Brodeur.  Scott Clemmensen has filled in admirably up to this point, and will look to continue his recent string of good games in front of what should be a less skeptical and more friendly home crowd. 

Okay, there is one bit of news – in what seemed inevitable given their play so far this year, coach Brent Sutter has announced that John Madden and Jay Pandolfo will no longer be exclusively matched against the top lines.  While I was against this last year when Sutter initially tried to do it before reneging (and they did play well for most of last season), the time is now right.  Our top six are much more well-rounded, and Madden and Pando sadly do appear to have lost a step, particularly on the PK which has been dreadful.  All that said, I almost wish he’d waited one more day to do it, since Madden’s always played well against Sid Crosby and Crosby ran roughshod over us in Pittsburgh sans Madden a week and a half ago. 

In any case, this will be a tough weekend - three games in four nights, granted all at home but we’re going up against the Penguins tomorrow night, the dreaded Rangers on Friday and the Sabres on Saturday.  A letdown after a long road trip is always a concern and will be again in tomorrow night’s game, especially compounded with the recent schedule and having three more days off since the hard-fought win in Montreal last Saturday.  They need to respond to what will be an overly positive crowd tomorrow night and put up a better showing against the Pens than they did ten days ago in Pittsburgh, when they lost 4-1. 

Of course, the latest Ranger matchup on Friday will be a gutcheck in itself.  With the Rangers slumping badly and the Devils playing well, it’s time to finally make this a rivalry again (as opposed to a one-sided beatdown), which it hasn’t been since the beginning of 2007-08. 

And the Sabres usually play us tough though we had their number in shootouts last year, and odds are Kevin Weekes will actually make an appearance between the pipes for that game, which is becoming rarer than seeing Halley’s Comet. 

Finally tomorrow there’ll be some action to talk about, and we’ll see how the team responds to this latest challenge.