Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Devils hold off Wings 4-3

The New Jersey Devils played two strong periods and built a 4-1 lead in the third before staggering through the stretch and barely holding onto a 4-3 lead to defeat the Detroit Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena..
Cory Schneider finished with 27 saves including a huge one with seconds remaining to cement the victory.
Kyle Palmieri scored twice (12 shorthanded and 13) to lead the Devils offense with Adam Henrique (13 shorthanded) and Stefan Noesen (4) providing the other New Jersey goals.
The Devils are off until Friday when they host Calgary in the first of a three games in four days run...

Hell Raisers

1) I liked what I saw from Cory Schneider in this one.
I thought the second goal was on him,but the first and three ones certainly couldn't be hung on him.
I think this was something to build on after his mopup effort against Washington...

2) Schneider also saved the game with a massive save with under 15 seconds to go.
The "duh" comment is to say that the Devils don't win without that save,but they don't and Schneider deserves the credit for the big play at the biggest time.

3) Kyle Palmeiri with two goals and one of them shorthanded?
The shorthanded one was the real surprise usually because Palmeiri doesn't usually see a lot of ice time with the Devils being a man down.
A Palmeiri return to form certainly would be a jolt to an offense in need of it.

4) Adam Henrique's shorthander with a flip over the shoulder of Jared Coreau and then going into the net on the bounce was another visually impressive goal.
I also liked Henrique's defensive play on the evening...

5) Stefan Noesen continued his fast start since being obtained off the waiver wire with the first goal of the game.
Noesen narrowly missed another goal shortly thereafter when a shot hit the post.
Noesen is hustling like a guy that is trying to take advantage of a new beginning and I hope this continues....

6) Non-Devils point-The Barclays Center has reportedly given notice to the Islanders that they want out of their deal with the team,so the clock has started ticking-the Islanders have two years to find a place to play.
The Rangers couldn't (likely wouldn't,even if they wanted to) share the Garden as they already have the Knicks there,The Devils likely wouldn't be interested in sharing the Rock and the Nassau Coliseum (the Islanders old home) might not be suitable despite a current renovation.
That means the Islanders might have to be involved in building a new arena,which if they had that possibility,they wouldn't have been in Barclays to begin with or might be on the move.
Let's make the stretch and say the move begins to happen-where will they land?
I'd think Quebec City would be the favorite with an arena ready to go.
In that scenario,I would think the league would want Quebec City in the same division as Montreal and Ottawa and my guess would be that the Boston Bruins would replace the Islanders in the Metropolitan Division.
Kansas City has an arena ready to go,so don't rule them out,Seattle makes tons of sense,but they don't have an arena and here are two more sleeper long shots,if the league wants to keep them in the Eastern time zone.
Cincinnati has a history of supporting hockey well,has talked on renovating their arena and would be a market where the NHL team would not share space with an NBA team.
Quicken Loans Arena is doing some fixup work in Cleveland,the Monsters draw well in the AHL and Dan Gilbert might be amenable to either owning or serving as landlord to another major league sport to help pay the bills.
My money would be on Quebec City,but there could be a few other horses in that race,if it's run...

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