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The biggest Patriots fan in Newark could return to the lineup for tonight’s game at The Rock, and play his first game since crashing into the end boards during a victory over Dallas on Nov. 28.
Pandolfo’s pelvic/abdominal injury, which has caused him to miss 28 games so far this season, is one of three significant injuries New Jersey has had to overcome this season.
Jamie Langenbrunner missed the season’s first 17 games with a groin injury, while Colin White was forced to sit out the first 20 before making his comeback from an eye injury suffered in the pre-season.
The Devils this season have played less than four full games with those three key players in the lineup at the same time. It is no coincidence that they won all four, part of a season-high, nine-game winning streak.
This is the time to put pedal to metal and take back first place in the Atlantic Division.
They cannot allow the Penguins to come into their building twice in the span of less than a week --- without injured superstar Sidney Crosby --- and skate away with a win. The home team is winless in the first five meetings between these division rivals this season.
With the exception of Doc Emrick, who will call the game on Versus, tonight’s game marks the first and only time this season our crew from FSNY gets the night off while the Devils play a home game.
I'm looking forward to just sitting in the stands, and enjoying the amenities that make Prudential Center the best arena in the National Hockey League. I have one night to sample the 26 types of food that Chico Resch has devoured this season.
Having hit a hockey "home run" on the road, the Devils are preparing for a more literal home run, starting Wednesday night when the Stars visit Prudential Center.
That's when Brent Sutter's sextet opens a five-game stand in Newark,following an astonishing out-of-town round-tripper that began Nov. 17 in Philadelphia and concluded Saturday night, Nov. 24 in Tampa Bay. Four wins out of four tries ain't bad.
Over that eight-day span, the Devs had plenty for which to be thankful - they spent Thanksgiving Day in Atlanta - starting with Martin Brodeur's milestone 500th win against the Flyers.
Touching all four bases, the Sutter-ites then added Ws at Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Tampa, thrusting themselves over the .500 mark and directly into the playoff race.
How could that have happened after so many "experts" had written them off following the 1-0 home loss to the Islanders on Nov. 16?
"We started building from there," says Brian Gionta, appropriately finding his scoring touch with a pair of biggies against the Lightning. "And we did it game after game, gaining more and more confidence."
While the print media was oozing doom and gloom after Islanders edged New Jersey, Sutter steadfastly insisted that he saw many positives -- and he was right.
Plus, his boss, Lou Lamoriello hardly was in a panic mode either.
"Jamie was one of the keys," adds Gionta, "especially on the power play; the way he draws the opposition out to him, giving us more room to set up plays. He's making plays and making things happen. Meanwhile, Marty (as in Brodeur) has been standing on his head."
To put it conservatively.
Following his highlight reel save against Dan Briere in Philly, Brodeur reeled off a few more at each stop along the way, including breakaway saves on Sid Crosby and Pascal Dupuis (in Atlanta) both at critical occasions in the respective contests.
"He wins games for us night in and night out," concludes Gionta.
It wasn't thus in the first dozen games and, perhaps, my buddy Chico Resch is right in suggesting that pressure to attain the 500th win wore on Marty more than the netminder actually revealed. But that's ancient history.
What makes the Devils' surge meaningful are the following points:
WINNING WITH AND WITHOUT PATRIK: Yessiree, Patrik Elias was coming on strong when he was felled with the flu prior to the match in Atlanta. No problem. Sutter juggled his lines and the Devs won a pair without PE.
A TIGHTENING D: White's return has been encouraging because he appears not to have lost ANYTHING, despite his vision problems. His hitting is robust, plus Colin has joined a much-improved defense. Mike Mottau has been the most pleasant surprise, but the others also appear steadier and more capable of a solid outlet pass than before.
UNSUNG HEROES: One nightRod Pelley delivers a winning goal (vs. Atlanta) and the next night David Clarkson does likewise against the Lightning. Meanwhile, Jay Pandolfo is playing the best two-way hockey of his life with more than a little help from John Madden.
Make no mistake, this club is far from a playoff shoo-in. There remain weaknesses but - on the road, at least - when the blunders seemed about to torpedo the club, Brodeur provided cement to fill any cracks.
With Dallas, Montreal (Friday), Atlanta, Boston and Washington on the home agenda, the Devils have an opportunity to climb farther above .500 and well into the playoff battle.
Imagine what they'll be like when Cam Janssen returns to the roster. That is, IF he's capable of cracking this most interesting lineup!
If ever Lou Lamoriello and his rookie coach Brent Sutter had a challenge on their hands, they do now, TODAY, Saturday, as they take on the Flyers this evening in Philadelphia.
Following a pair of home losses to the Rangers and then Islanders, New Jersey has a team that struggles to score goals at even strength and is egregiously futile when they have a man advantage.
On top of it all, they seem to lack overall zip over a 60-minute period and, remarkably, invariably suffer a bad break.
One game it's a Johnny Oduya broken stick that leads to an enemy goal; another time it's an unsportsmanlike bench penalty putting the club two men short and directly resulting in a loss.
And on Friday night at Prudential Center, the ultimate embarrassment.
Tied at 0-0 and with New Jersey on the power play, defenseman Mike Mottau, backed up into his own zone with the puck and then, inexplicably, fell backwards, missed a swipe at the loose puck and watched the Islanders' Josef Vasicek corral the rubber and put an endless number of fakes on Martin Brodeur until his shot bounced over the goalie and into the net.
Once again Brodeur saw his 500th NHL win elude him as he was outplayed by his opposite Rick DiPietro, despite making a number of solid saves.
"It was a lucky break for us," says Isles coach Ted Nolan. "Mottau hit a rut, and Joe made a great play to beat Brodeur."
Lucky, perhaps, but there have been constants.
With his team leading the Rangers in Newark on Wednesday, Brodeur couldn't stop Nigel Dawes on a breakaway, and the game turned irrevocably against the Devs.
While Vasicek did execute a few interesting dekes, his shot was eminently stoppable, but Brodeur failed to stop it.
Of course, the Marty Marching and Chowder Society will counter that his team did not produce a single goal for him over 60 minutes and that's precisely why Lamoriello and Sutter must search for an offensive brainstorm.
On paper, the Devils have scorers.
But on the ice Brian Gionta, Patrik Elias, Zach Parise, et. al. appear as out of sync as any forward units I've ever seen since I began covering the Devils in 1982.
"It's discouraging and perplexing," Chico Resch observed after it was over, but nobody has produced an antidote to the drought.
So what can change matters at Wachovia Center tonight?
For starters, Kevin Weekes should start in goal, if only for the sake of change.
As for the power play, Mike Rupp should be returned to the lineup and used when the Devs have a man advantage.
Sutter should put him in front of the net screening the enemy goalie. He also could use Rupp, who owns a powerful shot, at the point with a man advantage.
Certainly, the shots I've seen fired by Devils point men have been feeble, blocked or off the mark.
As the Sutterites reach the 20-game mark, their situation is far from a laughing matter. It's as serious as any in recent memory.
Lou and Brent have their work cut out for them, but no more than the 20 men who can't seem to find the back of an enemy net!
Expect the Canucks to re-sign Trevor Linden. TL himself said it last season, "I feel more like a kid than I did ten years ago. I'm not intending this to be my last contract."
For a good insight into why Linden is most likely returning, Vancouver Province columnist Jason Botchford adds, "The root of it is why I still play baseball every Sunday morning and catch nine innings. It's why my stepfather did the same thing in a recreational ball league until he was in his 50s and his knees just wouldn't let him run anymore. The root of it is why all over this province and this country people race home from work to get on the ball field, the soccer pitch or the ice rink. We all believe we still have plenty left to offer."
Fred Saskamoose and Glenn (Chico) Resch were inducted this summer into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame. Just about everyone remembers Chico as a pivotal element in the Islanders' 1980 first Stanley Cup win. But few recall Saskamoose as one of the first Native Canadians to skate in the NHL.
Fred grew up on the Sandy Lake Indian reservation and brought pride to his people by playing 11 NHL games for Chicago in 1953-54.
Thompson also has taken on a new role as assistant coach of the new Edmonton Oil Kings of the WHL.
The Blues made a sound decision re-signing Lee Stempniak to a three-year $7.5 million deal. Stempniak had 52 points last year and played in all 82 games. Brian Burke describes Stempniak as a "Swiss army knife player."
It was sad that the Devils last game in this great, old building after 25 years was a loss at home. But overall the core of the team is in place and the future looks bright as the Devils move into their new building.
The biggest question mark is not just who the Devils will hire as their new head coach, but as they found after watching the teams that have had success in this year's playoffs, have they found that their defensemen are as good as they need to be?
It's a new NHL. They need to be proactive.
For instance, I feel a guy like Paul Martin has a lot more to give offensively; perhaps even Johnny Oduya, and maybe even Brian Rafalski in some instances. That doesn't mean giving up on defense first for the most part, but if you look at the teams that have had success, it's been a little different philosophy.
You don't just win anymore by shutting down teams, you at times have to run with them and really put them on their heels. The Devils used to be able to put teams on their heels, first and foremost, by playing defense. Now I've found they have to do it at times by scoring goals at an opportune time.
Will the new coach have more of an offensive slant to his philosophy than in the past? And then of course, there is the big challenge for Lou Lamoriello. Is there a price that will be too steep for the Devils to pay to bring Scotty Gomez back? Because the truth is he is one of the truly few, highly-offensive forwards who can make a tremendous impact, and there are maybe 25 other teams looking to fill that role.
Will he be back? Will Zach Parise have to move into his position? Will the Devils use the money they save on Gomez to sign a free-agent winger or maybe more of an offensive-minded defenseman? Will they put him in a position where Lou Lamoriello might not want to spend the kind of money it's going to take to retain him? Those questions remain.
Those are the two big issues that I find.
Will there be a little bit of a different philosophy? And that will be apparent by who Lou Lamoriello hires as coach.
I think Scotty will sign within the first few days of July and then we'll know more about the direction that the Devils will have to go in.
The best thing of winning the last series against Tampa Bay, other than moving on to the second round, was the fact that some of the aspects of Devils hockey that weren't in place earlier in the series surfaced by the end of it.
Namely, the EGG line started to get hot. Their continuity and cohesiveness returned and they became a force. So the Devils were throwing two lines at Tampa Bay, rather than just the Travis Zajac line.
The second thing was Marty Brodeur settled down and became more comfortable and looked like he could control the series once again. And the third thing is the Devils' defensemen became involved offensively.
They will need all those aspects in round two because they're going to face a much deeper, better-balanced team in the Ottawa Senators, who are as good as they've ever been from their goaltending on out. This is the best Senators team that has ever had a chance to take a run at the Cup. So the Devils will need to bring all their tricks out of the bag because they're going to be a facing team that is not only well-balanced, but top-end heavy in terms of skill.
The Jason Spezza-Daniel Alfredsson-Dany Heatley line is as good as the Vincent Lecavalier-Martin St. Louis line, and they have much better depth in their second, third and even fourth lines than Tampa Bay did.
Defensively, it's a wash. What's proven though is that the Senators offensive input from their defense, the skill and strength they can inject into the offense, has been more consistent and maybe a little stronger than the Devils. And then of course you keep whittling it down and it comes down to two guys in goal, Brodeur and Ray Emery.
Emery got through a challenging first round against the Penguins. For him, it was a perfect series because he was challenged, he was facing some excellent shooters in Sidney Crosby, Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin, and he had some pressure moments that he survived very well, especially the third game in Pittsburgh. That being said, the Devils still have the edge in goal just because of Marty Brodeur.
Brodeur seems to be more confident and more in control against Ottawa than he was against Tampa Bay, so that will help.
The biggest factor for Ottawa is their hunger. They've never won. They have this gorilla on their back. A lot of them have been told they can't win; they've choked in the past. So they have a lot of reasons to find the extra incentive to win this series.
Most everybody is picking the Senators to win the series, and I would too, but it would be like 55-45. They have a little bit of an edge, but it's not substantial.
Home ice won't have a bearing on this series at all either. You can throw that out the window.
On special teams, the Devils started to get it in gear and function much better. That was primarily because of the Gomez line's restored confidence. But when you're facing Ottawa they have as good a first power play as Tampa, but their second power play can be just about as good as the first.
It's going to be a really close, hard-fought series. The question is, will Ottawa's offensive edge be enough to overtake the Devils' defensive edge?
A lot of times players don't like to say, "I've been awful. I gotta get meaner." They talk in generalities, "We this, we that." But I would hope that Patrik Elias, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta are thinking as a threesome. Elias could go really hard and act like a captain, but if the other two guys aren't in concert with him and aren't playing their game as strongly as he's playing his, it still isn't going to happen.
When you're a line, you have to think like a line. But he certainly has his responsibility. When Patrik was playing really well, he was hard to play against. He would rock you once in a while with a hit, he'd give you a stick, he would let you know that he was there.
Marty Brodeur said, "Except for the (Travis) Zajac line, we haven't been very difficult to play against." And I think that's the best way to put it for Elias and that line. They've been easy to play against. You're going to shut down lines obviously, but the Tampa Bay defense hasn't paid much of a price to shut those guys down.
Quite honestly, that line makes a rush, either gets a weak shot, turns the puck over, and then boom, Tampa's going the other way. There's no hard edge at all to their game. I'd like to say it's just Patrik, but it's that whole line really.
John Tortorella said it the best. "To win in the playoffs, your best players have to be your best players and you need a few surprises."
For the Devils, those three guys haven't been their best players and there haven't been any surprises. John Madden and Jay Pandolfo have played okay, no surprises there, but it's not like one of the Devils' defensemen has made some big plays, there's been nothing.
The only surprises we've gotten are like the "Oh no!" surprise, rather than the "Oh, yeah!" surprise, where you're saying, "Oh, no! Did that one go in?!" So it's been all the wrong kind of surprises.
The first three things that have to happen tonight is 1) Marty Brodeur has to be himself, be the difference positively; 2) Brodeur has to give his team confidence; and 3) Brodeur has to put some doubt in the minds of the Tampa Bay Lightning, especially Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis. Those three spin-offs have to happen.
I talked to Vinny and Marty St. Louis, and they're not saying they have Marty Brodeur's number - they know that's not the case - but they do sense that he's a little bit apprehensive when they get the puck.
Brodeur was saying the other day, especially with Lecavalier, "I don't know what he's doing." He's become a nemesis because of his unpredictability. What Vinny does that not many players can do is he can shoot the puck from anywhere and just rocket it and find the tough spots for Marty to have to make saves.
That's just the one-on-one psychic battle between goalies and shooters throughout the history of hockey, but he's got to find a way of making those guys think that the party's over and Marty now is going to take control.
Also, somebody for the Devils has to show leadership on the ice. Zach Parise's line, with Jamie Langenbrunner and Travis Zajac, has been terrific, but you need some other key players to show that they can swing the balance of the game and the series on their shoulders alone. And so far they haven't done that.
In talking to the players there hasn't been a mean edge to their game; there hasn't been the tenacious work ethic that they need. And so consequently they haven't had much of an impact in terms of what they've done physically, nor have they instilled confidence in their team.
Those two main factors have to change for the Devils or else they're going to be down three games to one tonight.
Jamie Langenbrunner missed the season’s first 17 games with a groin injury, while Colin White was forced to sit out the first 20 before making his comeback from an eye injury suffered in the pre-season.
Over that eight-day span, the Devs had plenty for which to be thankful - they spent Thanksgiving Day in Atlanta - starting with 
What makes the Devils' surge meaningful are the following points:
Once again Brodeur saw his 500th NHL win elude him as he was outplayed by his opposite 
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