Devils @ Thrashers, 11/23/07

What is this we see? A non-division game? Does the NHL front office know this is happening? Of course, nothing’s ever good enough for us, and we can’t help but kick things off by complaining that the best we can get after enduring nine straight Atlantic Division opponents is the Thrashers. It’s almost like it wasn’t worth the wait.

As it turns out, Thanksgiving was not kind to Patty, who is flu-y and out tonight. Who will we complain about if he’s not skating? Gio’s sure got his work cut out for him in this one. (Oh, and we told Patty to stay away from the oyster stuffing, but did he listen? He’s incorrigible.)

Doc and Chico lead off with a warning that Kovulchuk is really good. Yes, we’ve noticed that about him, and it’s only one of many reasons we’re so thrilled about the Devils’ chances here.

What the hell? We go to commercial and see what seems like a 10-second spot for something called “Headbangers”, a large bowling action figure toy. Pookie: “Forget a new laptop. I want that for Christmas.”

FIRST PERIOD

20:00 Before the puck is dropped Doc and Chico tell us Don Waddell was at a mall at 5:00 this morning getting a great sale price on a table saw. Surely this is something the Devils can exploit later in this game, right?

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Devils @ Pittsburgh, 11/21/07

What could be better to kick off an extra-long holiday weekend with than a Penguins-Devils game? And our third in 17 days? Woo hoo! The good news tonight is that Whitey is back, the bad news is that PaulieMartinNation is going to need to be talked down off a ledge because our goldenest gopher is still out. Also out? Rachunek, reminding us that “personal reasons” aren’t always dreadful – in his case today he’s home with a new baby. Good for the Rachuneks.

Our pregame tonight involve an hilarious stretch of Chico lurching in his seat like Frankenstein’s Monster while discussing Whitey’s impaired vision. Also hilarious? Doc admitting that calling the Parise/Elias/Gionta line the “PEG Line” is lame.

FIRST PERIOD

19:59 You know what’s really stupid? Those lame-assed premeditated fights players agree to over faceoffs. We can only assume this Malone-Clarkson bout started as the two were jawing about which one of them is prettier. We always knew Malone was pathetic, and he’s doubly so if he thinks he’s anywhere near to being in the same league as Clarkson.

17:50 The teams came out trading overexcited chances, rather how one would expect from two hapless clubs trying to not be in last place, but the last few seconds have taken an eternity to pass thanks to a parade of offsides and pucks ricocheting out of play.

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Hockey Makes The Devils Feel…

Now that we’ve met the 20-game mark of the 2007-2008 season, it’s time for the Devils’ first quarter grades. In our youths we attended a private day school that didn’t believe in grades; instead our teachers bestowed upon us, four times a year, written comments weighing our performances from both academic and effort perspectives. In is this spirit, and with a bit of report card inspiration from Arrested Development thrown in, we present to you our assessments of the Devils roster.

Hockey makes Kevin Weeks feel bam-chicka-bam-pow-pow.
Kevin Weeks can sit back and listen to all the porno music he wants based on the fact that he is the sole player who is not even the tiniest bit responsible for the disaster that is the first quarter of the season. By all accounts he works hard in practice, doesn’t complain about not getting playing time even when Marty’s looking shaky, and he says all the right things about wanting to be a part of this franchise. In our campaign to say positive things, he’s the only one who’s making our lives easy. And for that he gets a few more bars of bam-chicka and bam-pow-wah-wah.

Hockey makes Vitaly Vishnevski feel strong like ox.
We got some advice from Earl Sleek immediately after the Devils signed Vish-Dog about what to expect from him. Earl told us that he’d never score, he’d throw huge hits, and he’d take himself grievously out of position in order to get said hits. “Fantastic!” we thought, “He’s like a cheaper Colin White!” It turns out Earl was right, and so were we — Vish-Dog is the poor man’s Whitey. In all fairness, though, he’s been getting stronger of late; the big hits are coming pretty regularly, and the resultant lack of positioning is not terribly glaring. He also almost got a goal in a game, although Pando got a phantom tip from the toe of his blade on it to complete a hat trick, so we’re not going to rail to the heavens that Vish was robbed. Anyway, considering what else Vishnevski is working with on the blueline, we can hardly single him out. He’s been increasingly steady and pretty much exactly what we expected him to be.

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Kings @ Stars, 11/19/07

The latest in our ongoing series of game diaries featuring teams about which we know next to nothing brings us to Dallas, for a matchup with the Kings. LA’s feed opens with a little feature about their last meeting, which they’ve decided is now being called the “Royal Rebound”. Um, no offense, FSN, but we really doubt anyone calls it that. Thanks to Center Ice giving us freedom of choice, we also have the Dallas feed, and we intend to spend some time tonight comparing and contrasting the two broadcasts, because we can’t imagine how jumping between Jim Fox and Daryl Reaugh would be at all awful or anything. (It bears mentioning that FSN Dallas is not talking up the Royal Rebound.)

FIRST PERIOD

18:30 Whoever is calling the play-by-play for the Stars tonight (if it’s Strangis, he sounds like he’s suffered a back-alley lobotomy) sucks. We flip back to the Kings feed in time to hear Bob Miller get very excited about a mundane shot on the Stars goal. The play is followed by a very cool Frolov iso highlight replay. Hm. The Kings so far have a decisively better feed than the Stars.

15:22 We have pretty much only seen the Kings this year playing the Ducks, and they kind of seem like they should be a package deal. This is so odd, seeing Stars where we expect thuggish goons to be.

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Woolgathering With IPB: At The Quarter-Season Mark

Well, it’s a lazy Sunday night before Thanksgiving week, we’re all tuckered out from a day of winterizing our garden in a chilly rain, and simply don’t have the organizational skills to pull together anything better than a grab-bag of our thoughts, hopes and dreams.

– One thought we have is that the Devils have now played one quarter of the season; we promised we wouldn’t start really assessing them or panicking before Thanksgiving, but you know what? We’re going to start assessing, and we’re going to start panicking four days early. Twenty games is definitely a large enough sample size on which to be judging the team, and the overall impression they’re giving this year is that they suck. Badly. But in that maddening way that is based not on being a group of talentless hacks, but on them showing up almost every night looking lubberly and disorganized. Just when we reach our breaking point, though, and are ready to concede that there is no hope, they go and put in a great 40 minutes (or even, on the rarest of occasions, a great 50 minutes) and make us remember they’re capable of being much, much better. Basically this Devils team has, for the first quarter of the season, been just like that annoying person at work who does just enough to keep from getting fired. There isn’t even just one guy to point to — it starts at the top (with Lou) and goes all the way down to the second-to-last guy on the org chart (we’re absolving Kevin Weekes of any blame so far, although for all we know, he’s contributing by being a wretchedly miserable presence in practice or something. Although we doubt it). If the Devils were being consistently not good enough as hockey players to win, it would be one thing, but they’re being consistently not good enough at playing hockey in ways we know they’re capable of, and that’s why we’re panicking. When a group of this many professionals — with as much experience as these guys have –demonstrate a regular lack of focus, intensity and commitment, a fan can’t keep her heart from sinking.

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Devils @ Flyers, 11/17/07

After a little emotional counseling session with Katebits last night, we decided what we needed with the Devils was a little space. Not a trial separation or anything drastic like that; no, their rampant sucktitude of late has been suffocating us, and we were looking for some room to breathe. So we eschewed a game diary for this match, justifying it to ourselves that we were being too easy, we needed to play hard-to-get, we needed the Devils to prove they deserve a game diary. And our ploy worked perfectly. Tonight the Devils looked like they desperately want us back — they skated hard, they shot pucks from all over the place, they killed penalties and generally made the Flyers look like, well, last year’s Flyers.

The most significant story coming out of this game is that Marty finally picked up his 500th win. We are, of course, delighted for him, but more importantly we’re hoping everyone can just get back to the business of winning regularly now that there isn’t some enormous, figurative “500″ blotting out the sun everywhere the Devils go. It was nice to see Marty making those trademarked behemoth, ridonkulous saves we love so well from him, after which he stands there giggling at the replays on the jumbotron, and it’s nice to know the milestone wasn’t reached on one of those awful games before which we can only imagine Marty announced to his skaters in the room, “You only need to score 7 tonight, boys, because I’m only letting in 6.” So, yeah. We’re sending out a hearty IPB congratulations to Marty, and chase it with a stern, “Now build on this” admonition.

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Devils vs. Islanders, 11/16/07

Well, considering that we’re creatures of habit, we should probably be happy that we’re in the doldrums of schedule-hell month, and don’t have to deal with shocking changes to our routine like having to play teams that aren’t in our division. So here we go, once again, with the Islanders.

The big story tonight is that Patty’s been moved over to center. It takes us back, this system of having natural centers playing at wing and natural wingers playing at center; it reminds us of the good old days, back when we were killing hockey and not the other way around. Pookie comments, as we see a graphic about Patty’s position shift, “It’s not like it’s going to last more than 15 seconds, though.” She makes a valid point.

The pregame chit chat moves on to the Poppers, and Chico says, “A hockey team is a lot like a rock band.” We correct him loudly, “It’s an orchestra, Chico.”

FIRST PERIOD

19:35 Doc mentions that Greene is skating with Rachunek tonight because Paulie’s still injured. Pookie: “BOO!” Pause. “Sorry, that was just me booing Marc Staal.”

17:51 Patty hits the ice and looks like he’s not totally lost skating up the middle; of course, it’s the same old result after he takes a pass in stride, drifts up the offensive zone and then shoots high.

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