Devils Down B’s

There was a victory on this Monday night for the Devils and it came after what was very well the best first period performance of the year for them. They were doing everything right in the first period. Applying tremendous amounts of pressure on the Bruins, as well as creating shot opportunities. The players the Devils need to see perform above all others did indeed just that tonight. Kovalchuk, Parise, Elias all played a great game.

The Devils out shot the B’s by just one in the first, however, that was not indicative of how slanted the ice seemed to be at times. The first goal came after a David Clarkson shot was redirected in front by Rob Niedermayer, who was in perfect position (Skoula had the other assist). After that, Clarkson got involved again, but this time it was Martin Brodeur who made the goal possible (what’s that? How can a goalie set up a goal? Well just watch the replay and you will see what I mean). Marty made a gorgeous tape-to-tape pass to David Clarkson, who was wide open in the middle of the, ice past the center ice red line. After receiving the puck, Clarky rushed into the zone and backhanded the biscuit through Thomas’ arm to give Jersey a 2-0 lead. Than right after that, Mr. Devil himself, Zach Parise, got the third goal of the period, his 32^nd of the year, after traffic made its way in front of Thomas for a hard working goal. Cluade Julien yanked Thomas after this goal, as it was only the 12^th shot he faced in the period.

The Devils would submit to two Bruin goals before the night was over, however, this one goal game was not analytical of how this game played out. New Jersey owned the Bruins in the first period and just appeared to want this game more. This is something we New Jersey fans would like to see more of as it has become all too clear as of late, that the Devils have become just too damn inconsistent. I thought after the Penguin victory we would get going on a roll and have some mo on our side going into the post-season, but we fell short in the next game after that to the lowly Islanders. New Jersey showed tonight at least that they could get up for games in which their opponent are inferior to them. My point being is that they have no problem rising to the challenges of San Jose or Pittsburgh but give them terrible teams like Edmonton and the Isles and you don’t know what you are going to get. That is just way too much of a calamity for a team to deal with if they hope to raise a cup come May.

The Devils will be playing next on St. Patricks Day and will break out for the first time since donning the red & black, the retro red & green uniforms in which they debuted in, for one night only. The game is at 7 EST at The Rock and it has some serious Atlantic Division implication behind it. It will be a knock em’ down, drag em’ out kind of a game so lets see that killer instinct we seemed to lack tonight after the first period and a whole lot more of the dominance from the beginning of the game. GO DEVILS!