Questions for the home opener

Thoughts running through our head as the Devils come to Pittsburgh for what sure feels like it should be Game 1, but is in fact Game 3...

• What will Sidney Crosby have up his sleeve for tonight's personal special game? (Tonight is the first time both his grandmothers will travel to see him play an NHL game in person)
• Will this be the game that Miroslav Satan-- 0 goals, 1 assist and just 2 shots on goal-- breaks through? If Satan comes through versus the Devils, we'll give in to temptation (gah!) and use a New York Post-esque headline for our game recap.
• Is the power-play going to look more powerful back on American soil? 1 for 14 isn't going to cut it.
• How much longer is Rob Scuderi going to have as many goals as Evgeni Malkin?
• Does Bill Thomas get the start (or scratch) in his first chance to play in front of where he grew up?
• The last two times Pittsburgh played New Jersey back in March the results were a 2-0 win and a 7-1 spanking, both in favor of Sid's Kids. Can they hold that pressure up?
• If Biz Nasty gets a sweater tonight will this be his first fight? We think so. New Jersey doesn't have that many guys that regularly throw-down, but between David "Kelly" Clarkson, Bryce Salvador and Mike Rupp there ought to be someone to agitate.
• In another match up against a guy that was his idol, will Marc-Andre Fleury out duel Martin Brodeur again? Fleury's 4-7-1 (since 2005-06) against Brodeur but MAF only allowed 8 goals in four match ups against Marty last season. That number looks a lot better too if you consider that Fleury yielded five of those goals in a single game.

Biggest game of the season...For now

The good news: The Devils have to play on the road the night before a game of huge importance
The bad news: They're playing in Long Island against a team that's dropped 8 of their last 10 and has scored a measly 3 goals in the past three games.

The Penguins are tied for first with the Devils in the Atlantic with 91 points. Both trail Montreal by one point in the race for the #1 seed. Pittsburgh has a game in-hand on les Habs and, in turn, Jersey has a game in-hand on Pittsburgh.

After yawning out a likely win tonight, the Devs will be 2 points up on the Pens. If Pittsburgh loses, they'll be down 4 points with 7 games to go. While that's hardly out of it (especially when everyone's playing intra-divisional games), it's a hard gap to maintain. And at that point the New York Rangers will probably be closer to catching Pittsburgh than the Pens to getting to NJ.

Still following? The bottom line is this is the biggest game.....For now.


We've broken the last part of the season into the 5 segments that flow into each other:

Saturday Mar 22: NJ

Monday 24th: @NYI
Tuesday 25th: @NJD

Thursday 27th: NYI

Sunday 30th: NYR
Monday 31st: @ NYR

Wed. April 2nd: Philly
Sunday 6th: @ Philly

Team Effort; Pens Win

Our live notes from the game:

``Pens dominating first 5 minutes in possession, shots(7-3 advantage) and cycling the puck well, controlling the play.
``Nice PK'ing for Evgeni Malkin in the first but then Pens broadcaster Paul Steigerwald mentions on the Devils PP that Mike Rupp hadn't had a point in his past 56 NHL games....And you knew what was going to happen next....The "Slumpbusters" strike again.
``Also note that Nathan Smith (1st NHL game with Pittsburgh) was out there when the PK goal went in, since Jordan Staal (a regular PK'er) took the penalty and other regulars like Adam Hall and Colby Armstrong are out with injuries. This is what "they" talk about when "they" talk about the Pens depth being challenged.
``Weird to see Brooks Orpik on the wing. He didn't look comfortable and how could he; that's not his position.
``People don't think of Kris Letang being tough by style, but dudeman took a redirected puck to the face enough to draw blood and stayed on the ice another 30+ seconds to finish his shift.
``Jarrko Ruutu taking an interference penalty that will make a coach's stomach turn. Both players are going to the corner, the puck is coming, why take your hand off your stick and pull the man down when you can simply ram him into the boards cleanly in about 1.5 seconds.....Decisions like these are why he'll always be a 4th liner on a good team.
``Jordan Staal made a great power move from the corner and drove to the net and appeared to get a shot off that beat Martin Brodeur. It actually bounced off a Devil or two and went in. But the fact remains, good to the net hard and you will, eventually somehow someway be rewarded.
2nd line has been the best unit for the Pens....Crusher found Ryan Whitney streaking in the slot but a nice save by Brodeur.
``Bad and weird bounce off Letang's chest on Rupp's second goal....But if Jeff Taffe doesn't lose that faceoff cleanly in his own end, Rupp never gets to pull the trigger on the shot.

Martin Brodeur gets undressed

``Christensen's goal a thing of beauty. What hands, what precense of mind to cooly pull the "Forsberg" move on a helpless Brodeur.
``Letang won't get an assist on the 3rd goal, but his play to hold the puck in, skate it a second and then toss a saucer pass low to Malkin made the sequence happen. All three goals from plays starting behind the net...Hmm..
``Brian Gionta boards Taffe and at the worst possible time; when the "Bash Brothers" Orpik and Georges Laraque were quick to get in his face.
``Unbelivable hand-eye coodination from Ryan Malone on his second goal. Again patience of standing near the goal and waiting for his chance to knock the puck into the net.
47 minutes into the game and NHL.com has credited the Penguins with 3 hits. Either they statistician isn't watching this game or his hit button is broken.
``Darryl Sydor did a good job breaking up an evolving 2 on 1 for the Devils with about 9 minutes to go that could have shifted all the momentum to the home team.

At the end of the day the Penguins "took the air out of the ball" to use a football expression by playing sound hockey through the neutral zone and cycling down low playing keepaway---which shouldn't go un-noticed as being trademarks of Devils hockey.

Down 2-1 on the road Pittsburgh struck quick with two goals in under a minute and a half (one the sweet Christensen goal and then the first Malone one) that turned the game around. The Pens road their big dogs (Malkin, Malone, Peter Sykora, Maxime Talbot, Staal and Christensen) and they came through.


Sweater Ted 3 Penguin Stars of the Night:

HM: Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin
3. Maxime Talbot [2a, +2, 16:22 TOI]
2. Erik Christensen [1g, 1a, +2, 15:14 TOI, 3 SOG, 2-0 faceoffs]
1. Ryan Malone [2g, +1, 24:06 TOI, 3 SOG]

After Sid Watch:
2-1-1 (5 of possible 8 points)

Philadelphia is in OT at the press time, so Pittsburgh will remain in second in the Atlantic Division for another night....But more importantly, they knocked the Devils down a notch, at least for one night but also have a base of momentum for the next night. That next night won't be too long, as the boys will be back in action against the T-bombs.

The Devils are in the Details

As reported by PSI, Colby Armstrong is the latest Penguins to be socked with a nasty flu and will be out tonight and apparantely the newly re-acquired Kris Beech is having what was described as visa problems. How could a Canadian player who’s changed teams so frequently in the past 4 weeks be having visa problems is beyond us.

Even through this latest round of roster depletion the Penguins have 18 healthy skaters; so expect Therrien to run his unorthodox 11 forward/ 7 defenseman lineup. Which will probably mean that Brooks Orpik will get about 12 minutes of ice-time.

With 33 games remaining in the second “half” of the season (if you like to use the all-star break as the midpoint), the Penguins have quite a journey ahead of them. In a competitive division--the Atlantic has 5 teams with a .500+ regulation win loss record (the next closest is 3), Pittsburgh can’t afford to keep giving away points to rivals. Without their #1 center, leader and captain and the #1 goaltender for the foreseeable future, this is going to reveal a lot of character.

Though Malkin can and will shoulder a lot of the production burden, every forward on the team (especially members of the top 6 forwards like Sykora, Malone, Staal) must chip in with timely goal and play solid minutes. The team is going to need to stay out of the penalty box to keep the 23rd ranked penalty killing unit off the ice. Ty Conklin doesn’t have to be as dominate as he was his first 10-12 games, but he has to at least stop the ones a goalie should.

If the pieces fall together, the Penguins will get, by far, the best “deadline day” acquisition; that of course of Sidney Crosby (though the deadline is Feb 26th and Sid doesn’t figure to return until sometime in March, you get the point). Plus, something that makes us giddy, Gary Roberts is planning to return to skating on his own despite it was a month ago to this day that the 41 year old broke his leg. Soon too will guys like Armstrong, Fleury and maybe even Tyler Kennedy return to the lineup in the days/weeks ahead and be able to give the team a lift.

All they have to do is hold out for a little while. No better opponent to start the hanging and grabbing than the Devils; who are bound to be pissed off with their last performance when they blew a big lead (and we know NJ NEVER does that) and were called out by their coach.