Buying into the System
Commentators love to talk about players buying into a team system. This is especially true in hockey, where an individual player may lift the overall quality of a team but won’t single-handedly win games night after night. Having players that can be coached and instructed, and are willing to work, makes a team stronger and [...]
Hockey Is Back
Hockey is back, and despite all of the bad feelings during the lockout, I’m loving it. Devils win, Flyers lose, Rangers lose. I watched the Penguins-Flyers game just to bark at the Flyers in a warm up for the Devils home opener on Tuesday. I’ve made up my first nickname of the season – the [...]
Free Agency vs Loyalty
Zach Parise is going to play out his hockey days in the first state of hockey. I’m not sure of the proper nomenclature for an individual on a team that uses a non-plural name – he’s a Wild or a member of the Wild or as my Yiddish speaking relatives would say, a vilde. That’s [...]
Not With A Bang
Every post-season ends for every team but one with a loss. When it’s a team you love, that makes it further than you dreamed hope on Opening Night, that loss hurts. It’s worse than finding out the cute girl in 5th grade thinks you’re weird. It is, in the words of the Bubba, heart breaking, [...]
Four Reasons The Devils Will Beat The Rangers
I’m going to invite the evil eye and all other manners of superstitious bad karma by saying the Devils will beat the Rangers to go on to the Stanley Cup Finals (against the LA Kings, who have taken the slot reserved for “One of Gretzky’s Former Teams”). I’m fully prepared to ward off all untoward [...]
Teamwork and Accountability
We can dish out blame for last night’s Devils playoff loss all over the place: the inconsistent referees, the fact that Kovulchuk skated like he’s got a “lower body injury” (groin, hamstring, torn back), DeBoer’s line shuffles that accomplished nothing, Marty’s decision to play the puck without looking at the forecheckers, Volchenkov once again managing [...]
Hope For The Devils
The bad news: Parise is likely done for the year, Taormina is probably also done after ankle surgery (12 week recovery from that one, been there, done that), Salvador may have suffered a Scott Stevens-like concussion, and the team is still dead last in the NHL. But there’s good news, for the first time since [...]
How Not To Start A Season
The Devils are off to their worst start in 27 years. As far as I’m concerned their 1-4-1 record is an overstatement. They’ve lost five games and haven’t won a game in regulation yet this year. Their inability to score goals is a sign that something is very wrong with this team, and with the [...]
Kovulchuk Is A Devil
I’m flat-out delighted that Ilya Kovulchuk will be a New Jersey Devil for the next 17 years. The last time I was this happy was when Elias signed a 7-year deal assuring he’d play in New Jersey until the Bubba graduated from high school. Kovulchuk might be the first player that we cheer through four [...]
Powe, Right In The Smacker
Once again Princeton University graduate Darroll Powe put one past Marty, and that’s what it took to unravel a pair of winning streaks. Powe scored on opening night as well, seemingly deflating the Devils out of the gate. Tonight’s goal wasn’t the turning point (it was Van Riemsdyk’s goal that Marty didn’t see in the [...]