Stars outmuscle Devils 4-2

December 31, 2008   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

Playing their second back-to-back in the last six nights, the Devils looked even more flat than they did last night and yet still had a chance to tie the game late before Loui Eriksson‘s second goal of the night – an empty-netter – clinched the Stars’ 4-2 win in Dallas earlier tonight.

Not much to really say about tonight, you could see this coming a mile away.  Especially considering Dallas has been playing better since extracting you know who from their team, and they wanted to give the Devils payback for a humilating 5-0 loss at the Rock in October.  A ridiculously ill-timed line change by Jamie Langenbrunner led to the Stars’ first goal, when Eriksson jumped off the bench shorthanded and beat Scott Clemmensen on a breakaway.

Despite falling behind on a sloppy goal, the Devils did rebound to take the lead by the end of the first period.  Mike Mottau made a nice move inside the blueline and beat Marty Turco through traffic for his first goal of the season at 17:30.  Then during a power play with 24 seconds left in first period, David Clarkson got position in front and was able to sweep a rebound past Turco for his seventh goal.

If the Devils had held their own in the first period, they would get hit with a collective two-by-four in the second period, as the Stars outshot New Jersey 19-2 and scored twice to reclaim the lead.  Landon Wilson scored early in the period, then Mark Parrish followed up with a power play goal at 9:58 to give Dallas a lead they would never relinquish.  Both goals came off of rebounds as the Devils’ defense had trouble with Dallas’s big forwards all night.  Mainly Steve Ott who ironically did his best Sean Avery impression, running any Devil he could find all night, and then using his broken hand as an excuse to try to goad Mike Rupp into an instigator penalty.

To their credit the Stars didn’t sit back with the lead and kept pouring it on in the third period but Clemmensen held the Devils in the game.  Patrik Elias had the Devils’ best chance in the final minutes but Turco stopped him cold, and Erikkson sealed it up with an empty-netter.

Speaking of Clemmensen, here’s my pet peeve of the night.  Okay I like the kid, he’s already given us more than anyone could have a right to expect and aside from maybe one goal he should have caught he was the main reason the team had a chance tonight.  But why, exactly is it a good idea to give him a Martin Brodeur-like workload?  I realize Kevin Weekes is pretty much an ornament at this point, but this is the kind of game you can use a sacrificial lamb and give your backup some work in a non-conference game at the same time. 

If Clemmensen can’t sit once during a four game in six night stretch, the last two nights in different cities on the road against Western Conference opponents, then why do we even have a backup goalie?  With four conference games coming up and then a long road trip after that, sometimes you can’t have tunnel vision and need to think ahead.  Then again I’ve been wasting my breath for years wanting the Devils to play Marty less – apparently they believe in having their starting goalie play 70 games, whoever he may be.

Notes: Unfortunately Doc Emrick, who’s missed the last few Devils games due to laryngitis (or should I say ‘upper-body injury?) also won’t be able to broadcast tomorrow’s Winter Classic between Detroit and Chicago.  Dave Strader will replace him on the NBC telecast.  And amazingly Ty Conklin finds himself in the middle of his third straight Winter Classic as the starting goalie, after getting the nod for the Oilers against the Canadiens in the inagural game and being an injury fill-in for the Penguins against Buffalo last year.

BoNY Three Stars:

1. Loui Eriksson (2 goals, +1)
2. Brad Richards (3 assists, +1)
3. Mark Parrish (goal)