Devils @ Bruins, 11/27/09

Welcome back from the holidays, Gentle Reader! We hope that everyone had as lovely a Thanksgiving as we did here at stately IPB Manor. We also hope that you’re enjoying a tasty lunch of leftovers with this game, just like we are.

Whoops. We thought this game started at 12:30. Ha! It didn’t. Fortunately, we managed to discover our mistake early in the game…

FIRST PERIOD

18:20 Oh! There’s a game going on!

17:20 Uh oh. Clarkson gets hit by a shot from Chara and has to be literally dragged off the bench. Meanwhile, we’re all in a panic because this game is in standard def. NOOOOO!

16:06 Oh. Whoops. We’re just on the wrong channel. No worries! It’s in HD! Man, we’re a wreck today.

14:23 The Devils get their first offensive-zone possession that we’ve seen today (maybe they dominated the first 1:40? We’ll never know), and as Rask easily stops a Corrente shot, Pookie remarks, “I’m impressed any of the Devils made it to this game on time.” Schnookie: “Seriously. They were all sure this started at 12:30.”

11:49 Play has resumed its usual position in the Devils’ zone, and Fraser takes a penalty on Bergeron to stop a scoring chance. MSG decides to give us a replay of Bergfors drifting around the zone instead of the infraction. It’s like a little taste of Versus for the holidays.

9:59 By the way, we were vaguely fond of the Bruins last year, and we hate them this year. The difference? Lucic is always hurt these days. We’re not afraid to admit how shallow we are. Meanwhile, maybe Looch might get injured less often if he stopped insisting on living “pants-optional”.

9:02 Marty’s big citizen test is Tuesday. We hope he knows his presidents!

6:48 Right off a faceoff (in the Devils zone, natch), Krejci interferes with Sestito Puente. That’s something guys do at their own risk – Krejci’s going to wake up some morning to find severed cayenne pepper heads in his bed. Meanwhile, Chico tells us that the Devils’ PP needs to be good today, what with Clarkson being out. We feel it needs to be good today, what with the way the Devils can’t seem to gain possession of the puck at even strength.

5:45 Travis taps the puck into the goal, but sadly, the officials are a bunch of assholes who think that the rules need to apply here, so they wave the goal off because it only got into the net thanks to it being off the moorings. Worst rule EVER!

5:34 Travis whiffs on a wide-open, on-its-moorings net. We all chorus at the television that Travis is fired, and Pookie adds in horror, “I’m a stuffin behind – this is worse than Travis missing that shot!” (For the record, for last night’s dinner we followed the New York Times suggestion of baking stuffing in muffin tins; that way you get a whole bunch of serving-size muffins of stuffing, each with a delicious, buttery crust on all sides. After a few glasses of champagne, though, none of us could successfully say the phrase “stuffing muffin”, so we changed the name to “stuffin”. Cold leftover stuffins? Are insane.)

2:45 The shots are apparently 9-8 in favor of the Devils. That’s a pretty remarkable statement about how little the Bruins managed to do with their dominant puck possession and territorial advantage up until the Devils PP.

0:00 Hey! At the buzzer for the end of this period, Marty tied Patrick Roy for most minutes played by goaltender in NHL history. Pookie puts it best when she says, “That’s so cool.” Pause. “Marty’s the bomb.” Doc happily informs us that the Bruins are planning to make an announcement about this at the next stoppage of play in the next period. That’s nice of them.

We get an interview with Sestito Puente, and he looks shifty, like a guy who’s carrying luggage filled with illegal cayenne peppers.

SECOND PERIOD

19:50 We unmute a few moments late coming back from intermission, and miss whatever Doc and Chico are saying about Clarkson. We’re assuming the story is that he took a shot in the leg from Chara and won’t be back anytime soon.

19:00 Well, Marty is now the minute-iest goalie of all time. Chico thinks it’s poetic that his first career minute was against the Bruins.

16:54 Doc wishes aloud for an icing so that we can hear the arena announcement of Marty’s record instead of having to go to commercial. And as if on cue, the Devils ice the puck. It’s uncanny! (The announcement is quite nice, and MSG picks up a shot of some Bruins fans standing to applaud him.)

16:28 Okay, Devils, you can stop icing the puck now.

15:54 Marty is being asked by his team to show off exactly why he’s a legend (Chico’s word), and Pookie suddenly sighs, “It’s going to be so hard when we have to learn to watch this team with an average goalie. If that.” Pause. “Of course, we survived Clemmensen.”

14:10 The teams are trading icings, so MSG takes this opportunity to remind us of some of Marty’s other notable career records, specifically the 570 wins and 102 shutouts. Chico gets rambling about the shutouts and declares that Rask is also “in the running” to get the shutout record, and declares that he’s gonna find out how many shutouts he has, because he’s sure people are wondering. Yes. We are consumed with the question of how many shutouts Rask has in his career. We will never be able to rest until we find out. So thank heavens Doc steps in to inform the world that the grand total for Rask is two. He is indeed in the running to get to 103.

12:43 In the brief flurry of activity between icing whistles, Doc mentions that Sobotka has been hitting everything that moves. Pookie pipes up quietly with our “Wire”-themed nickname for Sobotka, “CANS!”, but her mouth is full of pins, so it lacks its usual enthusiasm. It’s probably more appropriate for the sleepy pace of this game to give such a subdued “CANS!” anyway.

10:15 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! The Devils finally decide to take a foray into the Bruins zone, and after Rask shuts things down on one shot, the Devils swarm the net off the ensuing faceoff and Zach scores by shoving the puck and Rask’s leg into the goal. It’s 1-0 Devils, and even Chico has to admit that there’s something not entirely kosher about that play. The puck’s not frozen, so the official can’t blow the whistle, but if that had been scored against Marty, we’d all be pretty pissed about it. In the end, though, the consensus is that that’s the “new NHL” for you, with the defender not being able to take Zach out of the play, and frankly, we’ll take it! WOOOOOOOOOO!

9:08 Peters and Thornton fight. It’s so not interesting that we’re not even going to get out our fight picture (which is the only thing we like about fighting).

8:13 Langer takes a penalty, but we fail to see what it’s for. Considering it’s Langer, it was probably stupid.

6:48 MSG gives us a replay of the Langenbrunner penalty, and it is, as we suspected, a dumb one. Savard nails him with a sneaky little cross-check that goes undetected, and Langer goes nuts trying to get back at him. Chico makes some weird groaning noise while trying to best display his outrage and disgust with how questionable that call is. We wonder if Chico’s maybe watching a different bit of footage right now than we are.

6:30 Zach’s motor is warming up after the early-morning start today, and he gets behind the Bruins point man to start a shorthanded rush that yields a good shot from Travis and a penalty on a Bruin. Replay shows the slashing call is a bit of a phantom one, but Chico just waves that off. Because he’s only a little bit of a homer.

3:20 The Bruins just can’t handle Zach at all! He draws another slashing call while rocketing toward the Boston net as the ice, as Doc would say, shifts to favor the Devils a bit here in the second half of the period.

2:47 Well, that PP wasn’t long for this world. Rolston, ever the worst hockey player in the world, slashes Wideman in front of the Bruins crease. Chico insists that it was too minor a slash to count for anything, even though Wideman looks hurt on the play. Doc, bone-dry: “So in terms of slashes, you’re looking for something that will render a guy like Captain Hook?” Zing!

0:43 The Bruins squeeze every bit of advantage out of their 20-something seconds of PP at the conclusion of the four-on-four, but Whitey and Marty are heroically up to the challenge.

0:00 We get an interview with Zach. He seems to be trying out some new eyebrow aerobics, and it’s freaking our cameraman out.

THIRD PERIOD

19:48 Marty tries to clear the puck from the trapezoid, but it hits a stanchion, bounces out in front, the Devils D can’t recover, and Wheeler ends up tying the game. It’s 1-1, and why did we manage to get back in time for the end of this intermission? Poop.

16:15 We’re discovering now why we don’t often diarize matinee games, as we’re all puttering away on a variety of projects. It seems the game is still going on, though. It’s a lot less interesting now that we know the Devils aren’t going to win 1-0. Hmph.

14:46 Andrew Peters turns the puck over to the Bruins on the near boards in the defensive zone, setting up an easy pass to an attacker in the slot. Schnookie: “Andrew Peters is the worst hockey player in the world…” Pause. “Whose name doesn’t rhyme with ‘Blian Blolston’.” Pookie, “Good catch there. I was going to be like, ‘There better be a qualifier on this…’”

12:02 This entire period has been played deep in the Devils zone, and Chico decides now’s a good time to point out that the ZZ’s are “not controlling the puck the way they need to.” Yeah, none of the Devils lines are.

9:21 After forcing a turnover at the Devils blue line, the ZZ Boogerforses get a three-on-two. They don’t score, but they also don’t get an apology from Chico.

8:43 The fuck? Doc’s talking to us about how “if the playoffs started today”, the Devils and Bruins would meet in the first round. It’s November. Why is Doc talking about this?

5:22 You know what’s been more fun for us today than paying close attention to this game? Finishing up processing our pictures from our trip to the Museum of Natural History on Tuesday.

1:20 Doc and Chico have been talking up how the Devils managed to eke out a regulation win on their last trip to Boston thanks to last-minute heroics by Zubrus. Then they sigh heavily and remind us that Zubrus is injured.

0:42 Boomer: “If I could choose, I’d take having a strong period in the third over having a strong period in the second.” And how.

0:04 Whitey breaks his stick on a shot attempt at the high point, and then gets stuck racing back on the ensuing Bruins’ rush without his stick, but the Bruins manage to get around him with ease. Thank goodness Marty’s in net.

0:00 Regulation time ends in a tie, but Travis goes off to the bench in agony after blocking a shot after that last faceoff in the Devils zone. You know what, Travis? The guy on your team wearing the pads to protect himself from shots like that? He’s pretty good.

OVERTIME

4:13 Travis has miraculously survived his misadventures in shot-blocking, and is on the ice with Zach for the second shift of the OT.

1:45 Marty finally freezes the puck with a good glove save after what’s been a delightfully frenzied extra frame. It’s always fun when two teams spend 60 minutes locked in a battle of the wills, then just throw caution to the wind and go crazy in OT.

0:00 In some wonderful alternate universe, this counts as a tie. In this universe, the Devils get more shootout goals than the Bruins, and get the win.