Devils Win! Devils Win! At Home!: Post-Game Reaction

Wow! The Devils just did the craziest thing — they won a game at home! Sure, it was against a fellow bottom-feeder, but beggars can’t be choosers. And baby steps. And all that stuff. It was a win! We have a few thoughts about tonight’s momentous event:

– In the waning minutes of the third period, Schnookie remarked that this game was uncharacteristically fun to watch, as there was something about the Devils that seemed fresh and fun. Pookie suggested maybe it was the first NHL goals by Vasyunov and Tedenby that made the Devils seem like they had a sassy spring in their steps, and Schnookie said that was partially it, but there was something less tangible. “Whatever it is, I feel like I haven’t even noticed Langenbrunner once tonight,” she marveled. Pause. Pookie: “He’s a scratch tonight.” Longer pause. Schnookie: “Well, that explains it.” Seriously, isn’t there a vast difference between the way the Devils look without him in the lineup and the way they look when he’s around to drag them down? It’s like his whining sourpussness blocks out the sun or something. But, on the bright side, we actually pretty much like the entire Devils team when he’s not playing, so we’re hopeful that this season can be salvaged. Lou.

– Tedenby is our new favorite Devil. At one point in the second period Chico was talking about the Oilers goalie while we were discussing Tedenby, and suddenly Chico was going on about how “they call him ‘The Giraffe’.” Pookie was like, “Tedenby is The Giraffe? That’s awesome! He’s exactly like the little miniature giraffe in that DirecTV commercial!” And then she did the little happy wriggle from the end of that commercial. Needless to say, the rest of the game featured the ever-growing legend of Mattias Tedenby, Miniature Giraffe; for example:

Pookie, after a good play by Tedenby: “I saw him get drafted!”
Schnookie: “It’s hard to believe we didn’t realize he was a giraffe when we saw that.”
Pookie: “I know!”
Schnookie: “Well, we were pretty far away from the stage, and he’s such a miniature giraffe. It was hard to tell.” Pause. “Although I don’t understand what kind of idiot scout interviews him and comes away from it thinking he’s a hummingbird on crack eating all their candy. Who mixes up a hummingbird and a giraffe?”
Pookie: “Short Circuit.”

– The play leading up to the game-winning goal was hilarious. Honestly, could Hank, Patty, and Chuckles have looked any less dynamic? Pookie suggested they were passing exactly how the old guy on the Simpsons with the really long white beard would do it. And just as we were on the brink of having to decide whether we were going to howl with laughter at the ineffectual passing or scream “shoot the fucking puck you fucking fuckers!”, Chuckles decided it was time to just finish this sucker. The ensuing explosive celebration, from Chuckles himself and his equally thrilled teammates, was — dare we say it? — adorable. It’s like he was attempting to create a new persona for himself, perhaps a Captain Chuck This Shit. (See what we did there?) It’s not quite as cute as a miniature giraffe, but if that goal was a sign of things to come, we’ll take it.

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Hey Look! Open Letters On A Mail Holiday! What Will We Think Of Next?

Dear NHL,

Contrary to what you might think, Columbus Day is not a holiday that is widely observed by employers in the US. Perhaps some of the games scheduled today that featured two American teams could have been saved for any of the “no games scheduled” days later this season?

Just a thought,
The Ookies

**********

Dear Tom Gulitti,

We truly think you are the greatest beat-reporter blogger in the business, and we are inclined to agree with you that Ilya Kovalchuk alone is not going to cure the Devils attendance woes. But please read the above open letter to the NHL. In light of our observations there, perhaps the attendance for today’s game should not be viewed as a definitive statement about Kovalchuk’s worthiness as a big draw.

If you’d like to stand by your statement, though, we guess you’re free to be as disingenuous as you want.

Passive-aggressively,
The Ookies

**********

Dear Tom Gulitti,

Maybe it wasn’t Kovalchuk who was the problem. Maybe it was Crosby.

Blowing your mind,
Boomer

**********

Dear Devils,

Please see the above letters.

Yes, we had to work today. Pookie also had to work late today. That means we have the choice of tivoing your game that was stupidly scheduled when we are both at work, and then watching it beginning at 10:00 pm after Pookie gets home. In light of your effort in your previous two games, we opted not to. Thanks for proving us right not to bother.

Lovin’ Losin’,
The Ookies

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Devils/Pens Post-Game Reaction

You know, when this season started, if you’d told us that our favorite series with any opponent in the league would be the one with the Pens, we would never have believed you. But as it’s shaken out, if we could have had 82 Devils/Pens games like the ones they’ve played so far this year, we’d take it.

That said, we wrote this open letter to the Devils during the second intermission:

Dear Devils,

When the officials are gift-wrapping a game for you, there is only so much they can do. You have to actually score on those power plays and penalty shots, because as much as the officials might want you to win, they’re not about to pick the puck up and toss it into the other team’s net for you.

Love,
The -Ookies

After the third Devils goal, we have to recant. Apparently the officials will essentially pick up the puck and toss it into the other team’s net for you.

In other postgame wrap-up news, this was the exchange we had after Niedermayer (the Lesser) had his ass vehemently handed to him in that “fight” with Cooke:

Pookie: Cooke just got him with the old “I know something you don’t. I am not left-handed” trick!
Schnookie: And Robin fell for it!
Pookie: He was like, “WHAAAAAA???”
Schnookie: When the correct response is, “I know something you don’t. I am also not left-handed.”
Pookie: Yup. But instead, he was just like, “OH SHIT!”

And finally, in his postgame interview with Stan, Marty said that goaltending is fun with the other team doesn’t score. We… aren’t sure what to make of that.

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Devils vs. Kings Postgame Reaction

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARF.

We’re drunk.

Also, we just finished watching the Devils/Kings game tonight. And because we always do our best writing when we’re drunk, let’s put pen to paper to assess the aftermath of this latest colossal suck-fest from our beloved team.

First of all, the entire team, from those weird little rookies all the way up to Lou, is fired. We’re not even sure we’re going to let them pack up their belongings. We might just have security show them out. We hate them all. And we’re drunk.

Second, have we vomited profusely yet? Yes? Well, we’re going to again. This game sucked. As did the game before it, and the game before it, and the game before it, and on and on and on. It’s almost as if the Devils like making us sick. Which, well, we guess good for them, because they’re accomplishing it regularly.

Third, even though it’s still January, thanks to the Olympic break we’re actually at the point in the schedule where the team has its annual swoon, so we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re sucking so bad. So it has always been, and so it shall always be.

BUT! Have you felt, Gentle Reader, the same way we have this month, that the days seem a lot longer than they did at this time last year? That the sunlight has been a lot brighter? This has been the March-iest January we can ever remember. There was no way the sun was still up as late at this time last year as it has been this year. It’s still light out after work! And during the day, the sunshine seems so warm and cheerful! Schnookie’s boss is traveling around the world this week, and remarked that he expected it to be Spring when he got back, based on how the weather’s looked this month, so we know we’re not alone in feeling this way. So maybe — just maybe — the Devils are similarly afflicted. Because this doesn’t look like the regularly-scheduled beginning of the annual swoon. No, the Devils are, right now, playing March hockey. No, let’s be more accurate — they’re playing April hockey. They’re playing like they, too, think it’s spring. (And maybe that they think they’re in a best-of-seven series against the Rangers.) They’re doing that top-notch “rip out your still-beating heart and drop it in your lap so you get to watch yourself bleed out” brand of hockey that we know and love so well from the last few playoff years. But maybe — just maybe — this is a good thing.

How could “rip out your still-beating heart and drop it in your lap so you get to watch yourself bleed out” hockey be a good thing? Well, because, despite all outward appearances, it’s still January. Or, if you’re reading this tomorrow, just barely February. What if the Devils are going to play out their crappy playoff hockey this month, then find themselves playing October hockey after the Olympic break, and then be in full November/December powerhouse mode again for the postseason? Maybe this is all worth it?

Nah, probably not. But we never claimed to be sober.

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Devils @ Penguins, 4/1/09 — Postgame Reaction

As the saying goes, fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us. We spent two and a half hours that we’ll never get back on Monday night watching the continuation of the Devils’ rapid descent from Cup favorite to enormous pile of puke. We’re not making the same mistake tonight. We were on tivo delay with Pookie working late, and now that she’s home at 10:00 after a crappy day, there are about a zillion other things we can think of that would be better uses of our time than watching this game, even on fast-forward. Screw you, Devils.

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Well, That Sucked: A Devils/Kings Postgame Report

We are beginning to hope the Devils don’t get home ice in the playoffs.

The end.

P.S. Sutter needs to give a copy of the new rules — the new rules Shanny pushed during the lock-out when he was calling the Coffee Klatch That Saved Hockey — to Shanahan and Holik. They consistently take hooking and holding calls that every other productive player in the post-lock-out era has long learned will be called every single time. Is it really too much to ask that those guys accept that it’s 2009 and those stick fouls will result in putting the team down a man?

P.P.S. Why is Brendan Shanahan killing penalties? What, is there a shortage of forwards on the Devils who are PK-capable and also understand the rulebook?

P.P.P.S. If there is a way to program the Devils to think the second period is just an extra half of the first period tacked on to an extra half of the third period, we need to make that happen.

P.P.P.P.S. If Zubrus didn’t have bad luck on goal reviews, he’d have no luck at all. The War Room really, really hates him, doesn’t it?

P.P.P.P.P.S. Stately IPB Manor held a Tranny Bride Appreciation Party this afternoon, hosting Kristin of Eager To Go Psycho for a wine and cheese picnic during the Philly-Boston game this afternoon. A lovely time was had by all (except Marty Biron), but it did result in our TiVoing this game for later. We managed to artfully avoid all scoring information until thirty second before we were to start the game. All annoyance at having the final spoiled was erased after seeing the game. If we hadn’t been warned, this might have gotten ugly. So thanks, Columbus Blue Jackets broadcast, for giving a completely random out-of-town-scoreboard report.

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Devils vs. Lightning, 11/5/08 — Postgame Report

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.

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