Game 3 Recap: Oh So Close in Montreal

If there is one thing I’ve been loving about the New Jersey Devils this year it would be the fight that appears to be coming from within. We saw it last Spring and so far, through 4 games, we’ve seen it 3 times this season. We didn’t really need to pull it out against the Flyers because we had that game in our grasp pretty early on.

The Devils were down 2-0 going into the 3^rd period and thanks to a crazy Elias redirect, they closed the gap to 1 goal. Early in the third, Montreal scored on a pretty play from Brandon Prust to put them back up by 2 goals. Normally, you’d think a goal like that, at that stage of the game would spell death but the Devils didn’t think like that, they didn’t give up home. They got a 5 on 3 and made Montreal pay the price. A few minutes later, they found the equalizer and all of the sudden it looked like we were going to steal on from the Habs.

While we failed to get the job done in OT, we did manage to get a point where we were down 2 goals in the 3^rd. Anytime this team can win 7 of 8 points available to them, I will take it!!

Final Thoughts:

·         For some reason the Devils came out missing something in the 1^st period but they got it corrected before the game got out of reach.

·         Elias had a 3 point night which put him at 900 points in his career. The guy has been the man for this organization for so long, sometimes I wonder if we forget how great #26 is.

·         Zajac rang a puck off the pipe 40 seconds into this game. Had that puck gone in, I wonder what kind of game we would have seen. Oh the “What if’s”

·         Speaking of “What if’s”.. Kovy had two of them.  A breakaway in the second period that was denied (it came together VERY quickly) and then rang a shot off the pipe in OT. If fact, Price didn’t even flinch as that puck whizzed by his glove.

·         The penalty in OT  that led to the Habs GWG was weak but it happens. Bad calls happen and they reaped the reward from it.

Now the schedule gets CRAZY busy. We have Boston on Tuesday, Isles on Thursday, Pittsburgh on Saturday and then Islanders again on Super Bowl Sunday. Not only is that a jammed packed schedule, it’s a schedule full of good teams that promise to be battles.