Game 4: Finally, a Solid, Complete Effort

Thoughts from tonight’s game:

1.) Great win. We finally played 60 minutes of hockey, and we didn’t let up. Great effort and, again, a much needed victory.

2.) Brodeur’s best game of the season. His defense let him down tonight, primarily one player. He stopped a lot of shots, again, and he looked to be in great position on almost every shot. You can see a clear difference between tonight and the Philly game. He’s more focused, more determined. He’s finally looking like the Marty that brought us success before.

3.) Oduya was awful tonight. Out of position numerous times, a bad line change led to the first Panther’s goal and being on his heels led to the 2nd one. He may have taken a good penalty in the 2nd, and he lucked out that we were able to kill it off.

4.) Penalties are hurting us, badly. We need to be more disciplined. End of story. Game 1 we were lights out on the PK and we even got a shorty, but the past 3 games now we’ve given up at least a PPG per game.

5.) Our power play is a tale of two lines. The first unit has a PPG per game. The second unit is horrendous. Rolston isn’t taking charge out there, and the rest of the unit has zero confidence.

6.) Florida Panther announcers are the worst in hockey. The color commentator did not go 5 minutes of the game without complaining about the trap. He came close to saying we haven’t won a cup nor had success without Lemaire as coach. I think he forgot 2000 when we swept Florida on our way to cup #2. This is one of the biggest drawbacks to needing NHL Center Ice to watch Devils games, dumb, annoying announcers.

My game puck goes to Michael Frolik of the Panthers. Why give it to an opposing player, especially on the losing team after a game like this, you ask? Its because he took 3 penalties, one borderline, and two of them led to power play goals, including the game winner by Clarkson. Thanks Mike!

Devils 3 - Panthers 2

2-2-0, 4 points

Back to .500 and a great effort just in time to take on Alex the Great and his solid Capitals team on Monday.