Twenty Minutes Not Enough

Devils 3: Islanders 2

One would think, after playing the Canadiens last night, that fatigue would catch up to the New Jersey Devils, but that wasn't so. Not at all. In fact, they had just the start they were looking for. It was the home team, looking for their seventh straight win on their own ice, that was the one to worry about.

Kyle Okposo was visibly annoyed when he had his interview with Rob Carlin during the first intermission. "We didn't come to play tonight," he opined, and in many ways he was correct. The Devils had outshot the Isles, sustained more pressure in the offensive zone, and Jamie Langenbrunner had put the puck past Rick DiPietro to get the Devils to a 1-0 start. The Isles looked far from the dominant team that had taken the ice on Monday, and Okposo knew it.

So the team regrouped, and in the second, Colin White took a five-minute major for boarding Sean Bergenheim that turned everything around. First was Okposo, who gathered in the puck after John Tavares whiffed on it and put it right past Brodeur's left pad. Then Jack Hillen threw a shot from the point that Brodeur and Bryce Salvador accidentally knocked past the goal line. 2-1 Isles, and everything was looking good. The Isles held the Devils to only that one shot in the entire period.

But then noted Isles-killer Zach Parise got a break, putting the puck off of Freddy Meyer and into the back of the net in the final minute of the second to tie it, and somehow that got the Isles off-track again. They got Bergenheim back, swollen nose and all, but it didn't help. New Jersey started to buzz, and now it was the Isles who couldn't get shots on goal and who were flubbing passes. And then Salvador redeemed himself for the own goal, receiving the puck from Rob Niedermayer off the faceoff and burying it as the rest of the Devils screened DiPietro in front. Parise got a second goal, scoring on the empty net to seal it for New Jersey.

Not much else to say about this game, other than it was not the Isles' best. They have one more home game on Tuesday night against the Capitals before going on a rather lengthy road trip.