Thu 22 Mar 2007
Rod Pelley: Ain’t no way Vinnie Lecav’s gonna score on me!
Word of advice, Roddy, keep your mouth shut. I fully expect Vinnie to net his 50th of the season now that Pelley has vowed he will not let the former Bolts cap’n light the lamp on his watch.
Oh boy. It’s going to be a loooong night.
Joe and I will be live-capping all game. It’s gonna be fun…I hope.
EDIT: Parise-Zajac-Langenbrunner are finally back together. About time, eh? Julien is scrambling here — he ain’t got poo on offense right now. Oh, and by the by: Elias, Gionta, Madden, and Rasmussen are all out tonight. Le sigh.
EDIT #2: Game underway. Let’s go Lowell!
EDIT #3: 1-0 Tampa. Didn’t take long for the defense to break down there.
EDIT #4: The craptastic power play gets a chance to (not) score a goal. Team hasn’t netted a pee-pee goal in its last 15 chances. Yikes.
JOE’S 2 CENTS: Of course a crappy redirection puts the Devs in a hole. I gotta give an ‘awesome’ nod to Mr. Colin White, something that happens about as often as Sergei Brylin scoring in a shootout. Don’t worry Rad Brad, didn’t forget about ya: smart penalty. So the ‘D’ has saved our butts a few times, now it’s time for a counterpunch. D+O=DO, as in ‘do something’. Like putting the puck in the net. To the 2nd we go. It’s all yours, Patricia.
EDIT #5 (WHICH IS MORE LIKE #6): Langenbrunner hits a goal post, redirects to Parise, Zachey misses it with the stick after being screened and can’t convert to put the puck in a wide open net. Seriously? Hockey Gods, you suck right now.
EDIT #6: Yays a goal. Karma’s a bitch. Stupid refs cost the Devils a goal, so Parise took things into his own hands with the hum-dinger past Marc Den-eeey to knot the game at one…oh, it was a powerplay goal. Haven’t seen one of THOSE in a while! Let’s hope for a few more now, mmmkay?
EDIT #7: Stop it with the penalties now! Oh, and I would like to further elaborate on Joe’s previous brilliant illustration of where to and not to shoot. Goal posts are a no-no, but, uh, can you guys stop pelting pucks into the chest protector of the goalie? Last time I checked, it’s quite hard to force a puck through a goalie’s body. Stranger things HAVE happened though…
JOE’S 2 CENTS: Well, boys: more of the same. The penalties have to stop, seriously. Brodeur is giving you guys a chance to win this game, now respect his authori-tah and give him something to work with! And listen to Patricia, you really can’t shoot a puck through a goaltender’s stomach. I tried. Just ask Mike. Oh, hey, Rod: do you always play with your head up your ass? LOOK UP before you shoot! First you shoot from 20 feet out on a breakaway last night, then you completely miss Brylin clunking his way to the net on a 2-on-1. Wrap this one up, boys. Now a nifty, between-the-legs drop pass back to Patricia! Bury it!!
EDIT #8: You suck, Jonny Oduya.
EDIT #9: 3-1 Tampa Bay. Martin St. Louis with his second goal of the night. Aaaaaaaaaand that’s game.
EDIT #10: Why bother? Less than a minute left, don’t even pull Marty. Don’t even call a timeout. You’re just wasting your time Julien. This team is purely an offensive joke without Elias and Gionta…and Madden…even though he doesn’t really score too much. Le sigh.
EDIT #11: Game over. Devils lose again. That’s three.
JOE’S FINAL THOUGHT: 
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Well I’m not sure Pelley even played against Vinny much of the night so the boast might have been a bit hollow, but he didn’t get #50.
I didn’t have a problem with him showing some confidence in this case, I’m sure he’s heard he’s no John Madden a hundred times and just wanted to assure everyone the world wouldn’t come to an end just because Madden wasn’t there to stop Vinny. Too bad his offensive game is about as good as Madden’s.
At least they’re still two points up - for the moment
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Clarkson continues to impress me. Even though Gomez’s giveaway didn’t end up in the back of the net, he still continues to piss me off. You have to love Parise though, it’s like “deny me a power play goal, fine, I’ll just put another one in”. I still can’t make up my mind about White, every time I think we should get rid of him, he pulls out something like that save tonight that makes me think he’s not so bad. Oduya is the opposite, I like him but every once in a while he does something like that giveaway to make me wonder why.
OK, so it is an official losing streak now, but I’m not going to freak out just yet. However, if we lose to the Panthers…
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Marty has one of the best records against the Panthers.
It’s just up to the rest of the team if they want this or not.
Again, 2nd line is kickin ass.
Defense??? It has its spurts. I’m tired of seeing them being pressured down low and then coughin up the puck….
Martin got smacked up into the boards and along comes another TB player.
POW! RIGHT IN THE KISSER!
Giveaway
POW! RIGHT IN THE KISSER!
I can’t remember if the D gave up the puck on the other goal. I guess that’s a good thing?
4th line, where art thou!?!?!
They couldn’t do any worse than the 1st and 3rd lines!!! I’d LOVE to see Cammer get another goal!!!!
Clarky is a BEAST!!
Did Pihlman even play?? HAHA
Pelley? Had a few good hits. Nothin memorable, though.
Now, some good news for tonight…
Pens lost
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Eh, I’d just rather NOT have Pihlman and Pelley in the lineup…both don’t look to have promising NHL careers at this stage of the game. Lucky for Rod, he’s still fairly young and green, but Pihlman has had his chance before and just looks lost out there.
The D hasn’t been up to par lately, but the offense is downright scary. Fact of the matter is, this is NOT a playoff team without Elias, Gionta, and Madden in the lineup. Not good at all. One goes down, we struggle, two go down — we’re in trouble. THREE go down? Signal the alarms.
Having Ras out of the lineup did smart a bit — he is a significant upgrade over Pihlman.
We *do* have a good record against Florida, but Belfour can still steal games. If we have a goaltending duel, that would probably be great — let Parise or Langs/Zajac get our one goal of the game and fight tooth and nail to the buzzer. Otherwise, we’re sunk. This team can’t score to save its life right now.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:13 am
Here’s one Pat…and we need to give this a shot…bench Gomez and Brodeur for the Florida game. Its not really Marty’s fault…but rest him for the playoffs. Can’t steal games when your team constantly shoots both feet from under ya.
The irony…the Lowell team is rolling along…something surely is amiss in Denmark and it pains me.
March 26th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
this is really interesting reading! you guys definitely show some passion for your Devils!!
March 26th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
How about this,Trade Gomez to Calgary let’s get Iginla in the house. I came over from a different dead Dev’s site and I’m glad that I’ve found this one, there are People here that bleed the colors like I do and know what they are talking about, I’m having a good time on this site. where was White for the first 10 minutes of Saturdays game? did He even play? Philman does nothing for Me.
March 26th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Hey Shari, thanks for making the journey to 2MA (=
February 27th was do or die for Gomez, now that he’ll be UFA at season’s end, he’s stuck with us until we’re done…hopefully that’s in June, but that’s up to the boys at this point.
Gomer will undoubtidly walk, so Louie Lams won’t get any return for him, but with the cleared up cap room, maybe we can get a center who actually is as capable offensively as he is at backchecking — which Gomez has absolutely no concept of the idea, apparently.