Devils, Brodeur beat Leafs in OT

For the first time in his four games back from a lengthy injury layoff, Martin Brodeur had to work hard for a victory.  Thanks to Johnny Oduya’s OT goal, Brodeur is still undefeated since returning to the lineup as his New Jersey Devils beat the host Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 on Tuesday night.  The Devils victory, coupled with a Boston Bruins loss to the Philadelphia Flyers gave New Jersey sole possession of second place in the NHL’s Eastern Conference and pulled them within six points the first place Bruins.

David Clarkson opened the scoring for New Jersey just over three minutes into the game with an even strength goal set up by Mike Mottau, Colin White.  It would be the only goal of the first period, and with a scoreless second period the Devils began the final twenty minutes of the game up 1-0.  John Mitchell would quickly even the score with his tally just 2:32 into the final period, assisted by Jason Blake and Mike Van Ryn.

The Devils would regain the advantage when Patrik Elias scored on the power play from Jamie Langenbrunner and Paul Martin to put New Jersey up 2-1.  They’d only hold the lead for just over five minutes, as the Leafs Mitchell would score again, this time on the power play assisted by Matt Stajan and Pavel Kubina and tie things up at 2-2.  With only 12 seconds remaining in the overtime period, Oduya tapped home a rebound of a Brian Gionta shot to give his team the hard fought victory.

Despite having his first really tough game since his return from elbow surgery,  Brodeur talked about his recovery and praised his teammates after the game:

"When I came back I was 100 percent healthy with my arm. It's just a question of testing it right now. The last four games I've done everything I can in a lot of different situations and my arm has held up pretty good."

"I just want to win games and sometimes you just have to shut them down. It's never something in the back of my mind. It's all about winning."

We let them hang in. We had plenty of chances to put them away in the first two periods. We had a lot of shots and they somewhat built on that. They had a great third period and it was kind of nice for us to show some character and pull it off."

Brodeur is now three wins from tying and four from surpassing Montreal Canadiens’ legend Patrick Roy’s record of 551 career regular season victories.  He remains three shutouts away from tying Terry Sawchuk’s NHL career best mark of 103 shutouts.