The biggest news surrounding the Devils has little to do with
their recent slump (three losses in four games) or their current
upswing (three wins in four). It doesn't involve injuries and
sickness claiming legendary goal-scorer Dave Andreychuk or
budding scorers Patrik Elias or Jason Arnott. Martin Brodeur
narrowly missed another goal, but no, I'm talking about: the
return of the Force For Cultural Hegemony, yours truly.
For those of you newcomers who don't realize LCS has a history, I
was the first remote correspondent, covering New Jersey and
Philadelphia. So it's only appropriate that editor-in-chief Mike
Dell brought me back to my old space for this, the "All-Star"
edition of LCS: Guide To Hockey.
I'm guessing you might actually want to read more about hockey
than my huge ego, so let's review the past couple of weeks with
your New Jersey Devils:
First off, it turns out Bill Clinton is not the only person
frustrated by a bunch of hostile Senators. To add to the pain of
last year's upset first-round loss to Ottawa in the playoffs, the
Devils have dropped two tough losses to Ottawa in the past two
weeks, and they found themselves trailing the seven-year-old
squad in the standings. The challenge continues, too, as the
Devils resume play after this weekend's All-Star Break with a
game against the Senators in Canada's capital.
This is not your father's New Jersey team, which is to say,
unlike in the Jacques Lemaire days, these Devils are not a lock
to keep leads. This was obvious in the Ottawa losses, which run
the risk of being very troubling for the team, in that they
involved blown leads.
With the Flyers recent surge, during which they lost only once in
the past 18 games, New Jersey cannot afford the shaky play
they've showed of late. In the new alignment of the Eastern
Conference with three divisions, trailing behind both Toronto and
Ottawa at season's end while finishing second behind Philly
puts the Devils in the fifth seed, not even having home-ice
advantage at the start of the playoffs.
As their place in the standings began to slip over this recent
stretch, however, they reversed the trend with a trip to the West
Coast. Although their tour of the California coast opened with a
disappointing loss to the resurgent Sharks, they headed into the
All-Star break on a modest two-game win streak with nail-biting
wins in Anaheim and Los Angeles.
That's the good news, but it comes with some qualifications.
Both wins came as a result of having more of those pesky "lucky
bounces" than the home teams secured. In Anaheim, the Devils
were the beneficiaries of a shaky game by backup goaltender
Dominic Roussel, who overcame a less-than stellar game by
their own Martin Brodeur and a late onslaught by Paul Kariya and
Teemu Selanne to pull out a 4-3 victory.
The following night, the Devils pulled off another narrow
victory, 3-2 over the Kings, which was the textbook definition of
"stealing a win." It opened with Randy McKay's 12th of the
season, which made Kings goaltender Jamie Storr look like a
shooter-tutor. From 30 feet out, McKay fired a slap shot
which nutmegged the unscreened Storr.
A couple of minutes later, though, the Devils decided to be good
sports and gave up a weak one themselves. Josef Stumpel's wrist
shot hit Brodeur in the shoulder, bounced over the confused
netminder and landed in the goal for a tie score.
After pulling ahead 3-2, however, the Devils got some real luck.
Down two men, three with the extra attacker who replaced Storr,
New Jersey very nearly surrendered the tying goal when Donald
Audette deflected in a floating shot. Fortunately for Robbie
Ftorek's bunch, though, Audette is giving Theo Fleury a run for
the "shortest player" trophy, and his shot was ruled hit by a
high stick (aren't they all high with Audette?) by referee Mick
McGeough.
So that's how the Devils ended the pre-All-Star portion of the
season. Andreychuk's injury won't heal anytime soon, but they
certainly hope the gradual return of their other missing players
will help. And the essence of what the competition for the
second half will look like will get a fitting kick-off as the
Devils open in Ottawa.
One final, positive note from a guy who doesn't get to see his
old home team much anymore (I'm based on the West Coast these
days): The ability of the New Jersey organization to continue to
maintain such incredible depth is staggering, especially given
yet another round of expansion. Rookies and sophomores like
Elias, Vadim Sharifijanov, Brendan Morrisson, John Madden,
Sheldon Souray and Sasha Lakovic have plugged in beautifully and
give the Devils all sorts of possibilities for this season and
many to come. Of course, it doesn't hurt that most of them
played at one point or another for Ftorek with New Jersey's AHL
affiliate in Albany, New York.
