PENGUINS RIP SLUMPING DEVILS

The New Jersey Devils have played well all season, but really shifted into high gear with the return of starting goalie Martin Brodeur to the lineup from a season long injury.  Brodeur immediately regained his form, quickly passing Montreal Canadiens legend Patrick Roy for the NHL’s all time victory record.  Since then, however, the Devils have been slumping and on Tuesday night were routed by the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-1 to drop further behind second place Washington and nearly out of sight of Eastern Conference leading Boston.

In what has to be considered a case of ‘emotional letdown’, the Devils are now winless in their last six games with Brodeur personally 1-5-1 since breaking Roy’s record.   Pittsburgh, meanwhile, has become one of the hottest teams in the NHL.  They’ve gone 15-2-3 since Dan Blysma took over as head coach and are now 10-1-1 in their last twelve at home.  They’ve moved from being on the brink of not making the playoffs at all into a tie for 4^th place in the standings.

The Penguins scored the first two goals to go up 2-0 before the midway mark of the first period.  They’d finish the first session up 3-1 with Bill Guerin, Matt Cook and Evegni Malkin all lighting the lamp for Pittsburgh.  Sidney Crosby and Jordan Staal would do the honors in the second period to give the Pens a 5-1 lead and Chris Kunitz would cap the scoring early in the third for the ultimate 6-1 margin of victory.  Brian Gionta’s goal midway through the first period was all of the offense that the Devils could muster.

After the game, Pens defenseman Mark Eaton said that his team wanted to put it to the Devils early:

"We wanted to jump on them early, they had lost a few in a row there, and make it so they can't go into their shutdown mode when they get in the lead. We carried the play in the first five or 10 minutes, got a couple of goals, and never allowed them to get much momentum."

Losing goaltending Brodeur didn’t have any answers, suggesting that it was just ‘one of those nights’:

"It wasn't easy for anybody. You could see the puck had eyes all night. It was just the way it went all night. I just wanted to get it out of the system and stay in the net."

The Penguins hope to continue their strong play of late when they hit the road with stops in Carolina on Friday, Miami to play the Florida Panthers on Saturday and against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.  New Jersey will host Tampa on Friday night before making the quick trip to Buffalo on Saturday.  They’ll return home to host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday.