Devils lose Zubrus, shootout in Music City

November 20, 2009   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

Last night’s game in Nashville was about as even as you could get for sixty-five minutes as both teams put up the same number of goals (with each team having one player get both goals) and shots on a night where the Devils again came from behind twice to force a shootout.  This time however, the shootout wasn’t as kind to the Devils as it usually is - and as a result the Predators got the extra point out of last night’s OT game and the Devils ‘lost’ their second straight on the road though they did at least get a point in the game as well. 

While Derek’s right that usually the Devils get the extra point in shootouts (after all, they lead the NHL in shootout wins since the rule was instituted – not bad for a team that initially argued against the skills competition), that’s never a one hundred percent guarantee, even with Martin Brodeur in net.  This shootout certainly broke the mold – more on that later.  As usual however, the Devils have bigger fish to fry than last night’s loss, as Danius Zubrus left the game in the middle of the second period after being hit in the leg with a puck.  As of now there’s still no word on the severity of Zubrus’s injury though rumor was that his leg was broken, which would certainly put him out for weeks.  If true, well that’s just peachy given all the other Devils already on the shelf.

Of course getting a straight answer out of the Devils in regards to an injury is like trying to obtain classified information from the government, harder in fact.  After all, Patrik Elias was supposed to be out 3-6 weeks and it took over eight, with Elias himself publicly worrying that he wouldn’t be 100% the rest of the season.  Not to mention the injuries to Johnny Oduya and Rob Niedermayer were deemed ‘not a big deal’ and both are still out of the lineup, weeks later.  Gee, I’d hate to see what classifies as a big deal!  Then again, I already have – hello 2009 New York Mets.

To be fair, with the exception of Paul Martin most of the missing in action at this point are really role players, though having Zubrus and Niedermayer out at the same time would force the Devils to move Elias over to center and also play recent imports Dean McAmmond and Tim Sestito more minutes.  Not to mention those absences do add up, if nothing else the increased icetime it forces the players still in the lineup to take on.  How long can you really expect the likes of Andy Greene and Mike Mottau to keep taking on 25-30 minute workloads every game and not have their play suffer?  I’m not sure if either has ever played that much consistently in peewees let alone at the NHL level.  And the top forwards ironically are getting the minutes now they should have been receiving during last year’s playoffs.  It’s not quite a John Tortorella situation just yet where the top two lines are automatically going to be run into the ground by the end of the season (especially since Zach Parise and Travis Zajac should be young enough to handle it) but is still something worth watching, especially in an Olympic year.

Zubrus’s injury almost overshadowed a spirited game last night, which saw very few penalties (only two power play chances for each team) but both teams amping up the hitting with momentum capable of changing at the drop of a hat.  Within five minutes, Nashville took the lead when Jason Arnott got gifted a goal by the effort – or lack thereof – of Brian Rolston, who basically while skating away from contact tried miserably to clear the puck with one hand on his stick, but instead the ex-Devil got it and wristed a shot past Brodeur that surprised him at 4:44.  As much as I have no complaints about Jacques Lemaire’s coaching to this point, you do wonder how long it’s going to take for him to realize this isn’t the same player he coached in Minnesota?  Really he’s playing like he should be on one of my two other sports teams with how much of a dissapointment he’s been. 

If Rolston’s the anchor on ship right now, Parise’s the engine that makes it go – and he quickly answered Arnott’s goal with a deft deflection (that I still haven’t seen yet) at 8:35 for his 12th goal of the season.  Initially it got credited to Colin White, whose slapshot from the point hit off of Arnott’s stick before going in but further review showed that it hit off of Parise’s stick as well.  Too bad for Whitey since he doesn’t have very many weeks where he actually scores two goals, but good for the Devils since it tied the game.  At least Whitey did get an assist, along with Travis Zajac.

After a slow second period, Nashville took immediate advantage of a bad penalty by Tyler Eckford in his first NHL game, scoring on the resulting power play 69 seconds into the third, with Arnott again tallying against his ex-mates after tipping a J.P. Dumont feed past Brodeur.  Eckford did play reasonably well in his nine minutes (even Lemaire agreed with that) but the coach also benched him after that penalty as well.  With the team for all intents and purposes down a defenseman as well as a forward after Zubrus went off in the middle of the second, the team soldiered on and Parise would score again three and a half minutes later when a feed from McAmmond of all people got tipped past Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne by the ever-present Zach Attack. 

Actually I was reminded later that McAmmond and Parise played on a line together in Albany during the lockout, so perhaps it was inspired coaching to put them on the same line again last night.  McAmmond actually played fairly well, with that assist and a +1 in 15:18 of icetime.  Elias also got an assist on Parise’s second goal which kept the game tied through overtime and onto the shootout.

Admittedly I was kind of hoping Elias would be one of the three shooters in the skills competition, to help keep him rolling if nothing else but you can hardly complain about Lemaire sending out Parise, Jamie Langenbrunner and Zajac as his choices – especially given their success in the shootout.  At least three events occured in the next few minutes that surprised me, the first being Rinne stopping Parise on the first shot.  If anyone has looked automatic at the skills competition it is the Devils winger but like I said above nothing in this part of the game is one hundred percent a sure thing and Rinne’s been hot lately - living up to the form he showed last year when he took the starting job from an ineffective Dan Ellis.

My second surprise came when the Predators led off with Mike Santorelli (a former sixth-round pick I’d never heard of before last night) – and he beat Brodeur with confidence through the five-hole.  After Langenbrunner and David Legwand were both stopped, Zajac was the Devils’ last chance and seemingly flubbed his attempt with the puck rolling off his stick.  However, Zajac with his back turned threw a desperate attempt on net at the last second that somehow got past Rinne – who might have lapsed in concentration for a moment thinking the game was over.  

Now the embarassed Predator goaltender was left to hope for a winner at the other end.  Enter Martin Erat – who scored on Brodeur while I was still laughing about the Zajac goal.  Not that Erat’s goal really came as a surprise to me, I felt Rinne played too well that he wouldn’t wind up as the goat in the end (plus Erat’s usually pretty good at these himself).  Hopefully the news later today on Zubrus is better than the shootout last night.  New Jersey goes to Dallas tomorrow night for their next game to finish out the three-game road trip.

UPDATE: Well I feared the worst with Zubrus and it appears that’s now what’s happened.  He’s out 4-6 weeks with an unspecified leg injury.  Both he and Illka Pikkaranen (does he even still play for the team?) were placed on IR – Pikkaranen with an unspecified illness.  Pierre Luc-Letourneau Leblond was taken off of IR. 

BoNY Three Stars:

1. Zach Parise (two goals, +2 and 7 SOG in 24:03)
2. Jason Arnott (two goals)
3. J.P.Dumont (two assists)