Hats off to Kovy as Islanders fall!

Ilya Kovalchuk's three goals (27,28 power play and 29)each came in a different period and Kovalchuk's fellow Devils helped out and broke a close game open with a strong third period in a 5-1 win over the New York Islanders at the Rock.
David Clarkson (27) and Patrik Elias (23) both scored in the third to enable the Devils to pull away from the Islanders.
Martin Brodeur made 29 saves in earning the win in net.
The same two teams drop the puck for the third time in a week at the lovely Nassau Coliseum Saturday night...

Hell Raisers

1) Want to know the best part of this win?
It shows that last season was an aberration and that the Devils are back,at least as a playoff team,if not a title contender.
The victory gave the Devils 81 points on the season-the exact number that the team totaled last season.

2) Ilya Kovalchuk had said that he had been overpassing during his cold streak of recent and he was going to start shooting more.
Judging by the last two games,that is a good thing. Kovalchuk used his rifle like shot on one timers twice to beat Evgeni Nabokov.Kovalchuk is always more effective as a sniper than a slasher and when the one timer is respected-Ilya Kovalchuk is VERY dangerous..

3) The third line of Jacob Josefson,David Clarkson and Alexei Ponikarovsky has become quite solid of late.
Ponikarovsky returned from injury for the win,but the line has showed some nice chemistry in their time together,particularly on the play that eventually ended with Clarkson's goal that saw some really nice puckhandling up the ice by Josefson.

4) Rachel still has not forgiven Marek Zidlicky for sending Nick Palmeiri to Minnesota,but sharp passes like the one on the second Kovalchuk goal and maybe he will win her over.
Or maybe he will settle for winning me over....

5) 29 saves for Martin Brodeur.
Marty was not as spectacular as he has been in some games of late,but he made the solid saves,gave the Islanders nothing and played his basically solid game...

6) The Devils 81 points ties them for fifth with Philadelphia and places them nine points ahead for ninth place Winnipeg.
I would not go as far to claim the playoffs are a lock yet,but we are reaching the point of  things falling into a perfect storm in order to miss them....

Photo Credit:AP Photo