For the first 27 minutes,the Boston Bruins were loaded for bear and moved out to a 3-0 lead over a seemingly flat New Jersey Devils squad.
After that though-all Devils domination and their never give up attitude enabled New Jersey to earn a 4-3 overtime win, keep their winning streak alive,add two points to their total in the Atlantic Division standings and move into a tie for first place in the Atlantic.
The Bruins seemed motivated for their coach Claude Julien,who was making his first visit back to New Jersey since his firing late season by the Devils and their three first period goals seemed put the Devils in an almost unreachable deficit considering the play of the Bruins.
But Patrik Elias started the comeback in the second with a redirection of a Brian Gionta shot that eluded Tim Thomas for the first Devil goal.
The goal was the 5th of the season for Elias.
The Devils managed to trim the deficit to 3-2 before the end of the period as Zach Parise scored (13) on the power play as the suddenly hot Elias picked up the primary assist.
Parise's 14th goal of the year was the only goal of the year as he deflected a Sheldon Brookbank missile past Thomas to bring the game to a 3-3 standoff.
Brookbank's assist was the first point of Brookbank's NHL career,but it would not be his last of the night.
Boston netminder Tim Thomas fell to the ice injured with a minute to go in the contest,so Bruin backup Tuukka Rask would have to shoulder the burden of stopping the Devils for the remainder of the battle.
Rask was game,but was unable to stop Patrik Elias from taking a Zach Parise pass and winning the game for New Jersey with his 2nd goal of the night and 6th of the season.
Sheldon Brookbank received his 2nd assist of the night with the secondary assist,while Parise finished the evening with 4 points,having had a impact on every Devil goal.
What a night for Devils fans and one that should make the doubters think about counting this team out.
Of course the 2 points are great,but the best thing was hanging in there and not rolling over from the awful first period.
Showing great character and desire is what is going to keep the Devils near the teams with more talent.
The Devils take a day off before Scott Stevens night against the Capitals on Friday.
What is bad for me is that I will see none of the pre-game that will honor THE Captain because of the opponent being Washington,Center Ice will force me to have the Capital feed.
So not only will I have to stomach Joe Beninati and Craig Laughlin (YUCK),I will miss the pre-game.
Bullpen notes
Speaking of the Captaincy of the Devils,Brent Sutter announced before last night's game that Jamie Langenbrunner had been chosen as the eighth Devils Captain.
Earlier the team had used three associate captains,but Langenbrunner's leadership apparently won Sutter over.
Excellent choice and congrats to the new leader!
Andruw Jones to the Dodgers?
For 2 years and 36 million?
Pretty good for both sides.
Jones gets some time (and decent bucks) to show that his 2007 drop off was a fluke,while the Dodgers only have his salary for two seasons in case it is for real.
Arkansas swung and missed on one ACC coach in Clemson's Tommy Bowden,but hasn't given up yet on the ACC as the leader for the Hogs job appears to be Wake Forest's Jim Grobe.
Wake isn't the type of football program that can be a long-term winner due to its school size,so one cannot blame Grobe for going,if he decides to do so.
But Grobe made Wake Forest football fun to watch,so he certainly will be missed at Wake and a great hire for Arkansas and in our opinion a better hire than Tommy Bowden would have been.
The Jason Bay talks with Cleveland are "dead" according to sources.
The hangup was Cleveland wanted to move the salary of Cliff Lee,while the Pirates preferred to take one of Cleveland's lefty youngsters either Aaron Laffey or Chuck Lofgren.
Stay in tuned,we think this still could get done eventually despite the public posturing from both teams.
Here is hoping that Neal Huntington uses the Pirates 2nd overall pick in today's Rule V draft for Minor Leaguers.
Wager that he will considering that two attractive prospects that are available are from Huntington's former employer in Cleveland.
Outfielder Brian Barton and first baseman Matt Whitney are both available to be selected from the Indians and one could be a Bucco by the days end.
A brief thumbnail of the top players in the draft can be found here.
All for now.
Could be back later,if anything interesting happens in the Rule V Draft.
Photo Credits
All-Jim McIssac-Getty Images
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