Things we liked about tonight’s game:
1. The defense looked, for the most part, pretty solid. As we write this in the moments immediately after finishing the game up, we can’t think of any specific examples of when the Devils played a defensive shift that made our eyeballs puke barbed-wire fireballs. In other words, we didn’t have a revisiting of the first period of the Buffalo game. Or every game from last season.
2. The forwards managed, for the most part, to make it look like they’re not going to spend the next four months insisting they can’t score without Marty on the ice.
3. Goals! Goals for the Devils, not just against them!
4. A power play goal! For the Devils!
5. After the way he managed to stop that burgeoning breakaway with a Niedermayer-esque diving sweepcheck from behind, Salvador may have sown the seeds for international recognition of IronBoarNation.
6. Kevin Weekes is totally adorable when he wins, and as ardent fans of post-victory Devils hugging, we really liked to see such enthusiastic, smiley hugs all around.
7. We felt like the Devils outplayed the Lightning, and after stupidly giving up the lead twice, they managed to bounce back and get two points. The glass-is-half-empty fans in us could fixate on the whole “giving up the lead twice” angle, but instead we’re just happy to see them not get totally demoralized. Our ultimate assessment of the game is that the good things they did tonight outnumbered the bad things. We’ll take it.
8. Pando! Pando! Pando!
Thanks we didn’t like about tonight’s game:
1. Shootouts suck.
2. The Devils don’t seem to have learned that when your PK is atrocious, you shouldn’t take many penalties. Perhaps Sutter can put a bug in their ears about that.
3. PandoNation’s emperor/god is normally very easy-going and laid-back, but speaking as PandoNation’s corrupt ruling priest class, we think he’s become angry. He’s demanding a human sacrifice. A specific human. Whose name rhymes with “Bleldon Blookbank”. That’s the price you pay for being an idiot and backhanding the puck lazily into the 15th row right after Pando scored the go-ahead goal with five minutes left in the game. Sorry, Sheldon. We don’t make the rules.
And in an unrelated aside:
1. Chico is hilariously much more vocal about how much he hates shootouts when Marty’s not the guy in net for the Devils.
