Watch this game where he singlehandedly earned the New Jersey Dev
ils a point in a 1-0 overtime loss that was filled with Green Lanternish saves,poor calls by the officials and pretty tame offensive work from the Devils.The Devils have two days off before back to back games vs Chicago at the Rock and then the beginning of the three game "Washington tour" in Carolina,Atlanta and Florida.
Hell Raisers
1) Readers here know that I call it straight,when the teams will cover here play poorly-I say so.
On this night,the Devils offense was bad,but the officials were worse.
Three quick examples that I caught,one was the slashing (or interference ,if you prefer) that saw Patrice Bergeron slash the stick from Paul Martin's hands leaving him helpless to Bergeron on the OT goal.
The refs did call the exact same play and penalty on Zach Parise in the third period that negated a Devil PP.
To me,it was the same call,but two different calls resulted-just be consistent!
2) Same result,two call thread continues when Patrik Elias was called for tripping late in the game forcing the Devs to kill a penalty instead of aggressively going for the win.
Elias got two in the box,while Ilya Kovalchuk was clearly hooked from behind by Mark Recchi just before the game winner and no call-Just be consistent!
3) All of that said,the Devil offense floated through the game with just 21 shots,none of them tough saves for Tuukka Rask and only David Clarkson's shot that smacked off the top of the crossbar was even close to a goal.
4) I watched the game on NESN,as I always do when the Bruins play the Devils (and it sure isn't for Jack Edwards either) and Andy Brickley brought up a great point on the game winner.
With 18 seconds to go and without a stick,why didn't Paul Martin grab,tackle,shove etc Patrice Bergeron to get him away from the net.
Marty Brodeur was on the other side and had no chance to make the stop,so considering the worst case scenario,which would be down a man for 18 seconds-why didn't Martin do that?
Great point by Brickley.
5) Patrik Elias started the evening by being named as the Devils nominee' for the Masterton trophy.
Elias ended his night with a game misconduct given after the game for breaking his stick and yelling at the officials.
Bonus round) In the end,the Devils can blame no one other than the Devils.
The refs were bad,but the team didn't play well and other than the netminder,no one comes to mind that played well,other than maybe Pierre-Luc LeBlond,who at least was hitting some guys in the white shirts.
These are the type of evenings that make me feel very nervous about a 4-5 series against what looks like Ottawa in the playoffs....
Back later with some melting pot stuff that will feature my daughter!
Photo Credits-Jim McIssac-Getty Images
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