Shocked by the Lightning

The New Jersey Devils never seemed to truly get untracked after a first period goal by Alexei Ponikarovsky (12) and was pretty much outplayed thereafter in a 4-3 loss to Tampa Bay at the Rock.
Tampa's Martin St.Louis scored three of the Lightning's four goals against Martin Brodeur.
Zach Parise (23 power play) and Petr Sykora (15) were the remaining Devils scorers.
The Devils cross the river today against the Rangers at 7:30.

Hell Raisers

1) Rough day for the returning Adam Larsson,who pretty much allowed two of the St.Louis goals.
It is not something that I am concerned about as the combination of the layoff and Larsson's rookie status likely caused the performance...

2) Martin Brodeur's numbers look less than stellar with four goals on sixteen shots,but I did not think that any of that were exceedingly soft.
Brodeur was not super,but not bad as the numbers indicate...

3) Tampa did get a goal from former Ranger Matt Gilroy,who was almost a Devil after entering the NHL as a free agent.
Gilroy has always been one of those players that I thought would be a good fit in New Jersey and I was surprised that the Devils were not mildly interesting in him as a free agent...

4) Ken Daneyko stated in the pre-game show that this was a "trap game" for the Devils and it made sense before and after.
Considering the strong effort in the Vancouver loss and the Rangers coming up the next day,that makes as much sense as anything else for the average game today....

5) Put the goal by Alexei Ponikarovsky aside,I have really liked his play since being acquired from Carolina.
Ponikarovsky has hustled and done all that has been asked of him,along with been surprisingly physical.
I would not be against bringing him back to the team next season and keeping him off the free agent market..

Photo Credit:Bruce Bennett-Getty Images