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Devils fall to Rangers at Garden While Marty Statue is Unveiled at The Rock

The Devils came out of Monday night with one positive and a negative a few miles and a river apart. The positive is the unveiling of the Martin Brodeur statue, “The Salute,” at Prudential Center in front of his family, friends and Devils fans. The negative was the 2-1 loss that the current Devils suffered against their rivals, the New York Rangers, at Madison Square Garden.

Let’s start with the positive. The Devils invited season ticket holders and a few lucky fans who could get their hands on a ticket (about 4,000 in total) to join in the unveiling of the 11-foot bronze statue of Marty, entitled “The Salute” as it is in the form of Brodeur as he would salute the crowd after being named a star of the game or achieving another milestone in his illustrious career.

The event included a display of memorabilia from the Hockey Hall of Fame, NHL trophies (including the Stanley Cup and Vezina Trophy) and the opportunity to have your picture taken with those trophies and the statue. The event was emceed by WNBC TV’s Bruce Beck and Marty himself. There was a Marty trivia game for fans to participate in as well. But one of the main draws, besides the statue unveiling and Marty being in attendance was for the fans to watch the Devils-Rangers game on the big screen at Prudential Center.

Now for the negative half of the story, as the Devils, coming off of their shootout losses to Toronto and Washington, needed to find a way to get a third victory this season over their cross-river rivals. Unfortunately for those in attendance at Prudential Center, they could not.

The Rangers would be without some firepower, as Ryan McDonagh and Rick Nash were their scratches. The Devils scratched Stefan Matteau, Tuomo Ruutu and Damon Severson again.

Starting in net was the now familiar matchup of Cory Schneider and Henrik Lundqvist. Schneider saw 37 Ranger shots and made 35 saves. Lundqvist was an almost-perfect 27 of 28.

The main story in the game was the seemingly lopsided penalty calling. The Rangers went on the power play five times, while only being whistled for a Kevin Hayes 10 minute misconduct in the first. New York would not score on the power play, but the Devils’ lone goal would come shorthanded. You cannot blame this on officiating, though. If the Devils were undisciplined, they are going to get penalties called on them.

There was no scoring in the first period; the initial goal came 4:47 into the second when Kevin Klein scored his fourth of the season from Mats Zuccarello and Marc Staal. It was 1-0 Rangers.

JT Miller would victimize the Devils again when he scored his 17th of the season from Derick Brassard and Jesper Fast 4:37 into the third. The Rangers were up 2-0 and the Devils were behind the 8-ball.

But late in the third, Devils captain Andy Greene took a hooking penalty against JT Miller. The game seemed to be on ice for New York, as the Devils would be down a man with roughly three and a half minutes left in the game.

But with 17:43, Travis Zajac scored shorthanded from Adam Henrique, pulling the Devils back into it. It was Zajac’s eighth goal of the year and the Devils seemed to have the momentum back in their favor after watching the Rangers possess the puck for the majority of the game.

After the successful penalty kill of Greene’s hooking call, the Devils pulled Schneider in a late attempt to tie the game. They had some chances on Lundqvist, but time simply ran out as the Devils could not get a shot through the tight Blueshirt defense.

With the game lost, the Devils will now look ahead to tomorrow and the Edmonton Oilers. It is the second half of a back-to-back and the Devils will be honoring Marty starting at 6 PM. The actual game has been moved to an 8:08 PM start time to accommodate the ceremony (which should last about an hour or so) and then warmups for the Devils and Oilers.

Some of the luminaries that are supposed to be in attendance include former Devil captain Scott Stevens and other Devils greats like Ken Daneyko, Scott Niedermayer and Chico Resch; former Devils play-by-play announcer Mike “Doc” Emrick will likely emcee and many other former Devils players, coaches and staff will be around to make this a memorable night for all. Aside from when Marty is inevitably elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, this will be one of the best nights to celebrate a historic career.

Tonight saw the revealing of the Martin Brodeur statue that will stand forever outside of Prudential Center, reminding future generations of Devils fans of the greatness of Brodeur. Tomorrow we will celebrate the man and raise his iconic number “30” to the rafters.

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Capitals Hand Devils Second Straight Shootout Loss

After suffering a shootout loss in Toronto Thursday, the Devils returned home to face the first place overall Washington Capitals. The opponent may have been at a different point in the standings, but the result was the same for the Devils: a shootout loss.

The Devils went into the game on wave of anticipation. Martin Brodeur’s jersey retirement is less than a week away and the man himself was on-hand to drop the ceremonial first puck. In a neat change of pace, instead of both teams captains taking the draw, Cory Schneider and Braden Holtby, the game’s starting goaltenders took it. In the final game at Prudential Center before Marty’s statue goes up and his number is raised to the rafters, the Devils would look to get a win for their former star goalie.

The goalies were solid: Holtby made 22 saves on 24 Devils shots, including two more in the shootout. Schneider was 27 for 29 and made one extra save in the shootout.

After a scoreless first period, Washington’s Andre Burakovsky put them ahead 12:30 into the second. He got assists from Justin Williams and Evgeny Kuznetsov.

The Devils would catch a break, though, when the Caps’ Mike Richards was called for tripping Tyler Kennedy just 1:34 into the third. The Devils needed just about twenty seconds to capitalize when the puck was worked from the point to Jacob Josefson on the near half wall. He passed to Joseph Blandisi behind the Capitals net, who quickly passed to Travis Zajac in the slot. He fired and the puck squirted behind Holtby, only for Blandisi to sneak behind and bury the puck in the net. The game was tied on the power play and the Devils seemed back in business.

The Devils would break through at 7:47 of the third when Blandisi and Lee Stempniak were sprung for a two on one. Stempniak tried to pass to Blandisi, but a Capitals defender broke up the pass, which luckily for the Devils, landed on the stick of Adam Henrique. Henrique shot and beat Holtby cleanly stick-side. The Devils had a 2-1 lead with just about half of a period left to go.

But it was not to be as Washington’s Paul Carey scored his first of the year at 14:07 of the third (assists to Matt Niskanen and Brooks Laich) to tie things up. Suddenly, the Devils were facing three-on-three overtime with the high-scoring Washington Capitals.

But luck would shine on them again when Williams was called for tripping Kyle Palmieri with one minute left in regulation. The Devils would finish the game on the power play and, if needed, would begin the extra session with the man advantage.

Time would expire with the Devils a man up, but they would still have one minute’s worth of power play time in the overtime period.

The bad news: they did not score on the man advantage. The good news: they kept the Capitals off the board as well.

And so, time ran out on overtime and it was back to the shootout. The Devils had gotten a point on the Caps, now they just needed to stop them in the “skills completion” to finish the job.

In the first round, Joseph Blandisi was stopped by Holtby and the Capitals’ TJ Oshie converted. Jacob Josefson was stopped in the second round, as was Kuznetsov. The Devils needed Reid Boucher to score to keep them in it. He did and it was down to Alex Ovechkin and Cory Schneider to decide the game. Two all-stars, one-on-one with the game on the line.

The Russian superstar skated in to a chorus of boos from the New Jersey fans and, after a series of head fakes and leg pumps, was able to beat Cory to give Washington the 3-2 shootout victory.

The Devils had stayed in the game with a very tough Washington team, only being outshot 29-24 and were able to come out with a point. That is a minor victory in and of itself, but they will need more when they visit the Rangers at the Garden on Monday.

It is another rough Metro Division game on Monday in Manhattan with more than bragging rights on the line. The Rangers won today and the Devils will need to pull off another victory against their arch-rivals in order to keep up the pace in the race for a playoff spot.