Better effort,but no W

The New Jersey Devils played hard for 60 minutes and the effort was the best in recent times,but the result was the same as the New York Rangers stormed into Newark and left with a 3-1 win over the Devils.Travis Zajac scored the only Devils goal (5) in the first period.
New Jersey takes Thursday off before New Years Eve and Day games against Atlanta and Carolina.

Hell Raisers

1) The Devils are having so much trouble scoring goals that they are having issues with the ones that do go in.
The goal that Zajac scored was off of what seemed to be 10 putbacks,rebounds and blocks before finally Zajac slipped the only goal of the night through.
Watching that sequence said it all to me-nothing is easy with this team,even when good things happen...

2) Martin Brodeur allowed the tying goal on a miscue of his own with a bad angle on a shot that he got a piece of with his glove,but the second goal was not his fault at all as the shot went off Andy Greene and into the twine.
Tonight was the best game for Brodeur in quite a while...

3) Vladimir Zharkov played 11 minutes in his return,but seemed to receive most of his time on the power play.
Time like that for the younger players could be helpful in getting something out of a bad season.

4) 43 shots and just one goal?
That is a combination of bad luck and nice network by Henrik Lundquist.
I do think tonight was a positive step in the proper direction,but much work still needs to be done.
Mainly with shot direction as just too many shots wind up in the netminders stomach....

5) Dainius Zubrus dropped the gloves and although Brian Boyle clearly got the better of the bout,Zubrus even doing so showed some aggressiveness and effort for the usually mild mannered player...

Photo Credit-Lou Capozzola/Getty Images