Flyers slam the door on streaking Devils

November 16, 2009   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

During all the hulabaloo over the Devils’ eight straight wins and nine in a row on the road, few noticed that the Flyers have been almost as hot, winning five in a row themselves before a home loss to the Sabres two nights ago.  On a night where they inducted tough guy Dave Schultz into the team’s Hall of Fame, the Flyers came up with a spirited 3-2 win over the first-place Devils, which stopped both impressive streaks.

Somewhat surprisingly the first period turned into a shooting gallery, with the teams combining for 29 attempts on net.  Maybe both teams watched Peyton Manning and Tom Brady pile up the points last night and decided to come out guns ablazing.  Yet, of those 29 shots only one turned on the red light and that came off a turnover when Martin Brodeur tried to play the puck along the boards and got intercepted by ex-teammate Aaron Asham, who started a tic-tac-toe play with Claude Giroux and Darroll Powe, with Powe scoring at 7:11.  Despite physical play throughout only two penalties were called in the first, the latter proving costly when Andy Greene got sent to the box – though his penalty probably did prevent a goal at the time, he could not prevent Mike Mottau’s mistake, when he dove for a puck going wide and tried to swat it away from the net…but instead it went past Brodeur for a rather unneccesary goal which was credited to Scott Hartnell after just 44 seconds of the second period.

Now down 2-0 for the second straight game, it was hard to see yet another comeback, this time in hostile territory.  Especially given some of the chances the Flyers were getting early in the period, but Brodeur was up to the task with some nice saves, keeping the Devils in the game.  Eventually the tide turned and Philly nearly self-destructed, taking three almost simaltenous penalties near the end of the period.  With both Jeff Carter and Mike Richards in the box, the Devils had a two-man advantage for almost thirty seconds and – surprise! – actually scored on this 5-on-3, when some nice passing from Patrik Elias and Zach Parise led to a David Clarkson goal at 15:42, his seventh of the season.  For Elias, it was his first point in five games since returning and Clarkson’s goal cut the lead to 2-1 as the teams headed to the third.

Still in range to tie the game despite surrendering 28 shots on net in the first two periods, the Devils’ offense was nowhere to be found for most of the night - partly due to the presence of Ray Emery, who’s become a thorn in the Devils’ side already this year.  In three previous games against the Devils (two in the preseason) Emery has given up a combined four goals, with the latter two more or less in garbage time on Opening Night.  While Emery did make 26 saves of his own in the first two periods, the Devils’ offense completely shut down in the third, not managing a shot on goal until there were less than eight minutes remaining.  Maybe the team finally felt the effects of four games in six nights.  Yet, another Brodeur puck-handling mistake would prove more costly than most realized at the time when he poke-checked the puck away from Bryce Salvador (who looked ready to clear it) – and right onto the stick of James van Riemsdyk, who didn’t waste that golden opportunity to put the Flyers up 3-1 at 10:38.

Despite a final power play chance in the third (the Devils had five power plays to the Flyers’ two) and several shots on net in the final minutes, the Devils couldn’t chip into the Flyers’ lead until it was too late – with .6 seconds left Parise finally scored on a play where Jamie Langenbrunner got pushed into Emery.  After the goal, the combative goalie took offense and all hell nearly broke loose with a late scrum but it only resulted in meaningless minor penalties to both captains (Langenbrunner and Richards).  At least Langenbrunner and Elias both got assists on Parise’s eleventh goal of the year, but that proved little consolation at the final horn as the Devils’ impressive run finally came to an end, as did their attempt to tie the Sabres’ all-time record with ten straight wins on the road to open a season.

Truth be told, the team was due for a slipup that I thought might happen a game or two ago.  And the Flyers are certainly a good enough team to beat you even when you’re playing well.  If there were positives to come out of this game, it was Elias’s two assists and the fact that the Devils came out pretty well to start the game and went all-out to score on their final shift even with all hope for victory basically vanished.  However, it would be nice to score on Emery before the end of the season – four goals in two games during the regular season so far, three of which could be characterized garbage time.  And while Brodeur played much better tonight than in the team’s opener, fact is for the second straight game against this team his mistakes proved costly.  Of course Marty’s usually done very well against the Flyers so it isn’t a Ranger-like jinx just yet - in spite of his recent 1-5-1 record against them dating back to the end of the ‘07-08 season.

In any case onto Nashville Thursday and hopefully they come back sharp with two days off and there’s no letdown after the two streaks got snapped.    

BoNY Three Stars:

1. Ray Emery (33/35 saves)
2. James Van Riemsdyk (goal, +1)
3. Zach Parise (goal, assist, +1, 22:18 TOI)