Being tied 1-1 is oh-so-much better than being in the hole 0-2, ain’t it? Ya’ll ready? I think so. Well, here we go, it’s time for 2 Man Advantage’s Playoff Breakdown: The Awesome, the Not So Awesome, and the Downright Ridiculous!

THE AWESOME: Jamie Langenbrunner’s heroics.

After mightily disappointing fans in the I’m A Hero Department, Jamie finally pulled through and netted what easily can be deemed New Jersey’s most important goal of the 2007 playoffs. The fact that his tally easily made Ray Emery look like a fool just made things all the much better. I love it, and you should too.

Seriously, though, Mr. Langenbrunner couldn’t have picked a better time to shine. Despite Joe Corvo’s best attempt at hooking the poop out of Langs, he found a way through the Ottawa zone a la Gomez Style-e and, well, scored. Oh, and Mr. Corvo — sorry, but violently knocking the net off its moorings really isn’t going to do much once the puck is already easily past the goal line. Nice try though. Oh, I jest!

Alas, the boys needed a hero, and since the Cap’n was too busy with Kleenex shoved up his nose to notice, Jamie had to suffice.

Okay, so maybe Patty didn’t have a wad of tissue in his nostrils, but all the same, right?

THE NOT SO AWESOME: Letting the Sens tie the game with like-no-time-left in regulation.

Last thing you want to do is give the Ottawa Senators of all friggen teams a chance to get back in the game. With about nine million Devils in front of Marty and a couple more Sens sprinkled in the mix, Dany Heatley managed to find a way to awkwardly deflect the puck off of MVP-Goalie and into the net. It was quite disappointing, really. The boys looked lazy on the whole play. I really didn’t appreciate the lack of clearing attempts, nor did I appreciate their skill for simply standing on the ice with their thumbs up their butts, looking up at the scoreboard and hoping that maybe the Sens would bow out gracefully. Let’s face it, despite his best attempts, Marty is not God.

Buuuuuuuut….

THE DOWNRIGHT RIDICULOUS: Martin Mother F’n Brodeur.

I’m pretty sure he made close to eight million saves tonight.

Really.

Okay, maybe seven million, but he was seriously more than awesome tonight. Bouncing back strong after giving up a not-so-awesome five goals in the series opener, Marty propelled himself back into awesome territory by finishing the night with a seriously awesome 43 saves. That’s a lot of rubber…and a lot of use of the word ‘awesome.’

It makes me happy to see our Vezina goalie actually play like a worthy Vezina winner. Yes, he did make some solid saves after giving up a ba-gillion goals in Game 1 to, believe it or not, keep the Devils in the contest, but unfortunately he did give up one (or five) goals too many to come away with a big, fat Double-Ya. Hey, water under the bridge now though, right?

He made some key saves tonight, and I’ll give him all the credit in the world, especially since his playoff OT record ain’t so hot. I’ll take any playoff overtime win this man can get, because, well, there sure aren’t going to be a lot of them.

But all is well with the world, because New Jersey’s finest are tied one-all with Ottawa’s finest and we got ourselves a SERIES on hand now! Going to Canada for Game 3 is going to be one fun affair…and yes, Sens fans, I know it would be so easy to throw in a Marty-Affair joke right there, but come on friends, that was so three years ago.

To Ontario we go!