Devils shot down in shootout

The New Jersey Devils played nearly a flawless game for 59 minutes and a handful of seconds.
However,an inability to clear the crease allowed Chicago to tie the game with the Blackhawk net empty and the Devils fell in the shootout in a 2-1 loss.
The Devils only goal goes to Ilya Kovalchuk with his first period tally (40).
The Devils travel to Mayberry tonight to face the Hurricanes...

Hell Raisers

1) The Devils played very well and should have earned two points,not one.
The glaring hole in the evening was Mike Mottau dancing with Jonathan Towes instead of clearing the net in the waning seconds.
Mottau didn't and between Towes and Mottau essentially setting a double screen,Martin Brodeur had no chance against the Kris Versteeg shot.

2) Only Jonathan Towes scored in the shootout as the Devils went 0 for 3 with Jamie Langenbrunner,Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk.
All used similar moves and it seemed like Antti Neimi was cheating to his right and was prepared for the shot..
Perhaps the Devils should mix up the shootout moves or at least mix up the shooting list of those using the same deke?

3) The game was unusual in another fashion as it was the first game to have no penalties called since 2001.
The refs missed two calls for sure as Vladimir Zharkov had his stick lifted into the Chicago bench and Jamie Langenbrunner was high sticked,but for the most part the game was clean..

4) Putting the Mottau miscue aside,the defense played very well.
The Devils didn't allow Chicago to camp inside and screen or offer a ton of rebound attempts,which was encouraging.

5) The point allowed the Devils to creep back into a tie for the Atlantic Division lead with Pittsburgh.
As of now,the Devils would win the tiebreaker.
The Devils have five games to play-three in a row on the road against Carolina,Florida and Atlanta before finishing next weekend with home games against the Islanders and Buffalo...

Photo Credit-Andy Marlin-Getty Images