Off the schneid on the road, Devils look for Florida sweep tonight

October 10, 2009   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

While the Devils’ shootout win over Tampa Bay the other night certainly wasn’t artistic, it was crucial.  As Derek alluded to in his recap, it would have been hard for the Devils to stomach going 0-3 in regulation with games at Florida and Washington before returning home again this Friday.  I was spared the gut-wrenching nature of the game on account of enjoying The Boss in Giants Stadium ironically enough since it’s mere feet from the Devils’ prior home (which kinda looks scary now as the Izod center), though I finally got around to watching most of the tape this morning.

Certainly things didn’t look much different than in the first two games, other than the disasterous second period which interestingly enough saw Martin Brodeur set a team record for most shots faced in a period with 25.  Even more remarkably, he stopped 24 of them, keeping the team in the game until Travis Zajac‘s last-second (literally) goal that tied it up.  While the team actually played well for the most part other than the second period, there were still too many defensive lapses and offensive struggles – aside from the captain’s line – to suit coach Jacques Lemaire.  At least Lemaire could be happy about his 200th win as a Devils coach, though it was his first since the end of the 1998 season.

It’s probably a good thing the Parise-Zajac-Langenbrunner line combined for two goals (and both in the shootout as well), since Lemaire conceded he’s even considered splitting them up because of the team’s offensive concerns – only seven goals total in the first three games, and two were more or less garbage time at the end of the Flyers Opening Night game.  While they remain intact for tonight’s contest against the Panthers, the other lines will undergo a makeover.  Rookies Nicklas Bergfors – who moves to left wing – and Matt Halischuk will skate together on a line with Danius Zubrus.  None of the above have really lit it up yet but the two rookies do have experience playing with each other and maybe can get something cooking.  Brian Rolston will move to right wing on the Jay Pandolfo-Rob Niedermayer line which actually has shown come early chemistry.  David Clarkson draws the short straw of being dropped to the fourth line with Rod Pelley and Pierre Luc-Letourneau Leblond who apparently will make his season debut tonight.

As far as the d-pairings there’ll be no changes tonight, though Lemaire did switch around a couple of them during Thursday’s game – Andy Greene and Johnny Oduya were on the ice together in the final seconds, with both contributing to the winning goal.  Given the same lineup, they have to show better or I’d expect more changes, if not neccesarily to the first five guys than to the pairings themselves.  After playing the first two games, Cory Murphy misses out on playing both his former teams.  As much as I hope he can contribute this year, he did look tentative the first two games, and Greene played alright, though his role on the tying goal was as much luck as anything else.

No change again in goal, as Brodeur will start his fourth game in a row and really it’s a bit early to worry about his workload considering there’ve been no back-to-backs yet, though Lemaire did concede it was hard to get Yann Danis into a game because of the way the team was playing.  In his words it’s unfair to Danis to be thrown in when the team isn’t doing well.  Granted, we’ve heard this song and dance before in regards to the Devils backup goalie but be that as it may at least Brodeur looked much better Thursday than in the first two games of the season.

Although Tampa lost in such excruciating (for them) fashion, you still had to be impressed with their two most recent first-round picks.  Steven Stamkos – last year’s overall #1 – looks like a force now after a slow early start to last season that had former coach Barry Melrose questioning whether the kid should be in the league.  And this year’s #2 overall pick Victor Hedman looks impressive, going at it with a surprised Clarkson in the third period among other things (which also included a nice assist on the third Lightning goal).  It’s one thing to be playing as an 18-year old, but to be logging 25+ minutes of icetime a night already is truly remarkable, though I’m not sure if it’s entirely smart considering Hedman’s never had to face an 82-game schedule before.  Still, it’s possible he has the body type to handle it and not get worn down.

Tonight in Miami the Devils look to go two for two against Florida teams in home openers, where the Panthers will take the ice not in the best of moods after a 7-2 beatdown in Carolina last night.  Florida’s 1-2 overall to open the season after splitting a pair in Helsinki against the Blackhawks and might have a couple players missing.  Recently signed Dominic Moore was still having visa issues, or so I overheard during a little of the Center Ice broadcast of their game against the Canes last night.  And old friend Scott Clemmensen is back with the Panthers but not scheduled to play against his former team following a whirlwind first couple of weeks of the season after returning home this week to attend his grandmother’s funeral.

“Busy and on the road. That’s the best way to describe it,” Clemmensen said this morning. “I think we travelled like 14,000 miles or something. We went to Nova Scotia (for camp). We were in Halifax, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary. Dallas, back here for two days, Finland for seven days. Played in a small town outside of Helsinki and then we played a couple of games in Helsinki against Chicago (to open the regular season). I was back at 5 in the morning on Sunday and I left Tuesday morning to go back home and got back [Friday]. It’s literally been a world tour in my last three weeks, four weeks.”

Hopefully things go better for Clemmer soon and he actually gets to play in some games before the end of the month.

As far as the Devils, while it’s obvious Lemaire and the team are still in a feeling out process, another win or at least a point would serve the team well before going to Washington in a couple days for another tough game.  Even with their loss to the Rangers the other night, the Caps’ top guns Alexander Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom are lighting it up like nobody’s business.  I know because on my fantasy team Backstrom has 10 points and nobody else has more than three yet, yikes!

First things first though, take care of business tonight.