Devils Roll, Canadiens Tumble

The New Jersey Devils downed the Boston Bruins Thursday night 4-3 in overtime despite blowing a 2-0 third period lead. That makes seven in a row for the Devils increasing their Atlantic Division lead to three points over the Rangers and allows them to slip past Washington for second in the East. This win streak is probably not an indication of what New Jersey will do in the playoffs but it says a lot about their team. When future hall-of-fame goalie Martin Brodeur went out for the season with an elbow injury early in November many wondered how the Devils would react to such a major loss. Scott Clemmensen has been quite impressive after a bumpy start to life without Brodeur in which the Devils lost 5 of 6 including a 4 game losing streak. Fans in New Jersey are now saying “Marty who?” well, not quite but so far so good for the Devils, but what happens in the playoffs is what matters.

On the other side of the spectrum are the Montreal Canadiens who, despite all the good will created from the all star game festivities this past week, are losers are 4 in a row and have questions about second year netminder Carey Price. Price has made three starts after returning from injury and has loss three games yielding 5 goals in each of those starts. The Canadiens and Price had some high expectations coming into this season, and many of those expectations can still be reached but it will take a much better effort from Price and from their once dominating power play. It is important to remember, however, that Price is just a second year player and not every goaltender can have the success so early in his career the way Patrick Roy did; but don’t tell Canadiens’ fans.

Short Blurbs From Around The League

I want to talk about a number of things in short order so a few blurbs on league wide news:

- Do not let Tuesday’s 7-2 loss fool you, these are not the same Columbus Blue Jackets from years past. People make pre-judgments about the team based on reputation only but they will make you bite your tongue when they beat your team.

- Yes, the Boston Bruins are that good. They may not dazzle you night in and night out but they play very good defense in front of Tim Thomas who is having an incredible start to the season. The Bruins will absolutely be a force throughout the season and I would NOT want to face-off against them in a best 4 of 7 series come playoff time.

- Brian Burke resigned as Anaheim Ducks GM (shocker…). Despite his denials he will most likely end up in Toronto and help their already ahead of schedule rebuilding process. Burke and Ron Wilson may knock heads but it will probably result in victories.

- The Chicago Blackhawks are once again relevant, THANK GOD. Not only is this great for the U.S. since Chicago can be a great hockey town if they have a winner to support but it also serves the league well since the Winter Classic will more than likely be a competitive and intriguing game.

- The Minnesota Wild have played the fewest number of games of all teams in their division and yet they are in first place. Minnesota plays very slow-paced methodical defense that puts teams to sleep, reminds me a lot of the Devils of the mid to late 90s and early part of this decade. All New Jersey did was win 2 cups in a 4 year period and 3 in 8 years; that’s good news for Wild fans.

NHL GMs Please Keep Your Coaches

From some reason the NHL is notorious for firing coaches at the very first sign of trouble. In some cases the teams can be doing reasonably well and slip for a week marking the end of that coach’s tenure. So far this season the Chicago Blackhawks have already fired Denis Savard as their head coach four games into the season, FOUR. The last time I checked the NHL season is 82 games long, so in my humble opinion the firing of a coach four games into the season, no matter the records, is outrageous. In the meantime, most teams have played nine games and some suggest newly hired Tampa Bay Lightning coach Barry Melrose is on the “hotseat.” Are you kidding me? Melrose has not coached in a number of years and he has a newly assembled team who need time to adjust to the new coaches and each other before they can be expected to have a great amount of success. So far there have been a number of teams that started slowly but been able to rebound including the Philadelphia Flyers, Anaheim Ducks, and Calgary Flames to name a few. Give Melrose some time. The all-time disaster in coaching changes was just prior to the 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs when the New Jersey Devils—who had the second best record in the Eastern Conference and been crowed Atlantic Division Champions—fired coach Claude Julien. The Devils subsequently lost in round 2. Please NHL, stop prematurely firing coaches.