Worth the wait (sort of)

October 22, 2009   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

Going into tonight’s second Devil-Ranger showdown (the last one until January) it had been five full days since the Devils actually played a hockey game.  Nicklas Bergfors, despite being second on the team in shots still hadn’t scored his first goal of the season yet.  And oh yes, it had been an two and a half years since Martin Brodeur’s last win at Madison Square Garden, at least in the regular season.  Brodeur’s last win of any kind over the Rangers came at the tail end of the ‘07-08 season with a shootout win to close out the regular season and an overtime win in the playoffs at MSG.  Incredibly, you have to go back to ’06-07 for Brodeur’s last regulation win over the Rangers. 

All of that changed tonight with the Devils’ 4-2 win over the Rangers that improved their overall record to 5-3, giving New Jersey its fourth straight road victory to start the season.  Bergfors scored the Devils’ second goal in the first period, on a masterful deflection off a David Clarkson pass.  And Brodeur finally lived up to his rep again versus the Devils’ biggest rival, making 29 saves with many of the highest quality as the Devils’ defense suffered severe breakdowns throughout the game, particularly in the latter two periods.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on another yet first that took place tonight – a Sean Avery fight against the Devils.  Since he became Brodeur’s primary antagonist the Devils have tried in vein to get a piece of him but of course he wouldn’t take on a real fighter like Clarkson who he’s ducked frequently or Pierre Luc-Letourneau Leblond (a last-minute insertion into the lineup).  Tonight though, Avery actually deigned to drop the gloves with defenseman Mike Mottau, who took exception to a hard hit in the first period and stood up for himself gamely.  While nobody would ever confuse Mottau with sidelined Ranger tough guy Donald Brashear, he actually acquitted himself well in the latter part of their minute plus long bout before Avery scored a takedown.

As happens frequently in hockey, the fight had an effect on the game with the Devils seizing the initiative.  Just 45 seconds after Mottau and Avery’s fighting majors, the Devils scored a pretty goal at 6:11 using the entire ice with quick passing from defenseman Paul Martin to Jamie Langenbrunner to Rob Niedermayer and finally up to Zach Parise, who beat Henrik Lundqvist with a quick wrister over the glove for his fourth goal of the year. 

Although the Devils’ power play was typically powerless on their lone opportunity of the night (no shots on net), give the Rangers credit for taking the pressure to the Devils on that man-advantage.  At least this time the Devils tried to shoot the puck though two attempts on goal were blocked.  Bergfors would add his goal at 15:10, giving the Devils a 2-0 lead and though the shot total was pretty much even the run of play belonged to the Devils for the most part.

For some reason, the second period’s been a major problem with this team so far.  Whether it’s the dreaded long line change or maybe believing they had the game won after twenty minutes the Devils alternately let up and played like chickens with their heads cut off throughout most of the second period and first part of the third, giving up quality chance after quality chance.  Though Brodeur would give up two in the second period that tied the game, he frequently had to stand tall and couldn’t really be blamed on either goal.  As if to rub our own hideous power play in our faces that much more it took the Rangers a mere seven seconds to score on their first attempt when a laser-sharp Marian Gaborik wrister beat Brodeur at 1:47 and from there the Rangers started rolling.

Even though the Rangers outshot the Devils 13-6 in the second, the Devils held on to their lead tenuously until a massive defensive breakdown allowed breakaway extrordinare Ales Kotalik to get one-on-one with Brodeur, and he beat him with his typical open-ice skill for his second goal against the Devils this season.  Finally the Devils started to get a few chances late in the period but at the start of the third it looked like more of the same, with the Rangers’ pressure unnerving a tentative Devils team. 

Then things suddenly changed…as Jacques Lemaire conceded in the postgame it was a lucky goal that turned the tide at 7:51 when almost a blind pass toward the net by Parise from the corner was deflected past Lundqvist by Danius Zubrus who also scored his first goal of the season.  From there it was more back-and-forth with both teams trading defensive breakdowns but neither goaltender budging.  In the final two minutes the Rangers nearly tied the game when Ryan Callahan found himself all alone on yet another breakaway, but a lunging effort by Colin White did enough to distract Callahan and get the puck out of harm’s way.  Parise added an empty-netter in the final minute for his second of the game, finally giving the Devils a much-needed win over their rivals.

I won’t add a three stars at the end (and I was neglectful to do so in my first couple of recaps) cause I’m sure Derek’ll have his own recap later but if I did they would be obvious – Parise, Kotalik and Brodeur in that order.  I will add just a couple of random thoughts on the Devils themselves at the end:

With all this time between games I’m not sure I’ve commented on a fairly newsworthy event that occured starting with Saturday’s game – Lemaire taking taking Travis Zajac away from Parise and Langenbrunner, breaking up the Devils’ top line for the first time since they became a unit in the first weeks of the ‘08-09 season.  Alternately using Zubrus and Nieds in the middle of our two best wingers does make me long for the return of Patrik Elias that much more, but Zubrus did come up with a big goal tonight (finally) and Robbie Nieds has been overachieving so far, so short-term it can’t hurt and I’m not opposed to line juggling in the first few weeks and months anyway.  This is the time of year to experiment, so you know what you have when it really matters.  And Zajac’s done a fine job away from Parise and Langenbrunner, which is definitely encouraging.

Ironically most people thought the defense would get better at the expense of offense under Lemaire but so far it’s actually been the opposite.  Other than the lousy power play, the offense has held up rather well without Elias and integrating a ton of new forwards but there’ve been way too many defensive breakdowns.  Splitting up the Martin-Johnny Oduya pairing’s probably contributed to that as Oduya does not look like the same player without Martin to babysit him, though he showed signs of improvement tonight with a +3 he’s still a -3 overall on the season with no points.  I still wish Lemaire’d split up the slow and slower duo of White and Mottau but they were the best of the three pairings tonight.

Have I said enough how much Brian Rolston annoys me?  You’d look at a statsheet and think, oh six shots on goal, at least he’s putting the puck on net.  Well yeah but from where, exactly?  One shot came off his back foot off the boards from near the blueline and nobody else near the net, what was that supposed to accomplish?  Especially with time and space to get a better shot towards the middle of the ice and closer to the net.  Rolston and Parise (of all people) managed to screw up a two-on-one in the third period with one too many passes culminating in Rolston pitifully jabbing a puck toward Lundqvist.  Two goals and four points in eight games is just not cutting it, especially considering Rolston’s the one guy that was supposed to know the Lemaire system down cold.

All in all though, 5-3 ain’t bad, especially with the issues the team has to work through – new coach and system, defensive breakdowns, line juggling and missing Elias.