It’s been quite a season for the Devils, hasn’t it? We went from the euphoria of the Kovalchuk signing to the despair of the Kovalchuk signing rescinding, from the stratospheric highs of the first 18 minutes of the first period of the first game of the season to the immeasurable depths of the rest of the first half of the season, from the repulsive sucktitude of the MacLean Era to the “wait, when did they get good“-itude of the Lemaire 3.0 Era, and then from the “stranger things have happened! We can still make the playoffs! Wait, stranger things haven’t happened? Um… I still believe!” post-Langenbrunner run to the “well, that ended with a whimper” coming-up-short. It’s hard to believe this all happened in just the last six months. And it’s hard to sum it up in one post-mortem. Who do you blame? Who do you praise? What’s the predominant narrative angle?
For us, the overarching storyline is all about Chuckles. First, we Chucklesdoodled when he signed with the Devils. Then we sat in stunned silence when his contract was voided. Then we gave the Devils a piece of our mind for so cravenly preying on our Chucklesthusiasm. When the season fell out of the gate with the dull thud of a cold corpse, we made Chuckles cocktails. When Schnookie got a flat tire during our December advent-calendar themed series, we said it was the Kovalchuk day. Even now, when we really have nothing left to say about the Devils, it still seems to us to be the Chuckles Story. As it began, so should it end. Which is why we can eulogize this season in the most Chuckles-appropriate way possible:
A little song/A little dance/A little seltzer down our pants.
Gentle Reader, the 2010-2011 New Jersey Devils.
