Thursday, January 21, 2010

Brodeur carries Devils over Florida.

Martin Brodeur carried the New Jersey Devils last night as the Devils snapped a three game losing streak with a 2-0 win at the Rock over the Florida Panthers.
Devils goals to Travis Zajac (14) and Dean McAmmond ( 5 shorthanded,empty net).
New Jersey will play back to back games on Friday and Saturday as the Devils will host Montreal before traveling to Long Island to play the Islanders....

Hell Raisers

1) Been away for a while,actually for all of the losing streak.
Quick condensed version,not good defensively in Phoenix, a decent effort in Colorado and maybe the worst game of the season against the Islanders.
The offense still hasn't really turned things on,as the McAmmond goal went in literally before the horn and made no difference at all.

2) The shot to the Devils offense came in Colorado when Ryan Wilson (who I was very impressed with) crunched a careless Patrik Elias with a check that sent Elias off the ice on a stretcher and onto the IR with a concussion.
Clean hit to me,but a hit to the Devils offense for sure.


3) I also liked two things on the aftermath of the hit.
Mark Fraser stepped up and fought Wilson soon afterwards,defending the injured teammate and Wilson knew it was coming,fought like a pro and then didn't cry about having the fight.
Solid professionalism by both parties....


4) The Devils have made a few moves after the Elias injury as Matt Corrente was dropped to Lowell as the Devils needed extra forwards.
Nick Palmieri and Patrick Davis were brought from the minor Devils with Palmieri assisting on the Travis Zajac goal that was the only even strength goal of last night's game.

5) Part of the Devils issues (against Florida at least) could be center depth as the team had to use just three centers against the Panthers.
The Devils waived Illka Pikkarainen today,in what Fire and Ice believes is a way to clear space for Tim Sestito to return from Lowell.
The Devils intend to assign Pikkarainen to Lowell,if the Finn clears the waiver wire...

6) The energy and effort was there from the Devs after the awful performance against the Islanders.
The goals werent,but the effort was and when that happens,eventually the goals will follow.

7)Finally,we call them truthfully here and this one hurts as Devils prospect and Canadian National Junior team captain Patrice Cormier has been indefinitely suspended for this blatant cheap shot of an elbow.
The elbow comes around 1;04 of the video
Watch at your own risk as the injured player convulses on the ice.
There is no place in the game for that sort of hit and Cormier deserves a solid suspension that hopefully will wake him up as the youngster has NHL type of ability.

I hope to be back later with some extra clean up work....

Photo Credits
Bill Kostroun-AP Photo


Photo Credit

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