Most good things must come to some end and tonight it was the end of a five game winning streak. The New Jersey Devils suffered their first non-win of the month in a 4-3 shootout loss to the St. Louis Blues. All things considered, I can't say I'm upset or really disappointed in how the Devils played or even the final result.

Sure, the Devils were in a position to win and didn't get it. I'm not saying fans shouldn't care about that or that I don't care about that. Rather, the Devils played a really, really, really good Blues team in a fairly even game and took them all the way to a shootout. Outside of the shootout itself, the Devils didn't fall flat on their face or lose their focus entirely when St. Louis scored or had a good shift. The Devils had several opportunities of their own to attack and succeeded with three goals and sending their starting goaltender, Jaroslav Halak, to the bench. It would have been great if they got a fourth goal on the several chances they had to get one; but Brian Elliott played excellent in relief and other chances just didn't get finished for one reason or another. It happens.

Sure, the Devils had a lead in the third period and it got lost in that final third of the game. It's not like the Devils really blew it, though. The goal itself was a floating shot from Roman Polak that Patrik Berglund deflected into the net through traffic and Johan Hedberg. As far as equalizing goals go, that's just a bad break for New Jersey. There was some concern about the height of Berglund's stick, but a video review showed that it wasn't clearly over the crossbar. The goal stood and it became 3-3 until the end of regulation and, eventually, overtime. The Devils didn't sit on the 3-2 lead, they out-shot the Blues 9-6 in the third and that's including a 5 minute penalty kill when Kurtis Foster got a major and a game misconduct for boarding. The Devils played a relatively good third period; an unfortunate deflection just beat them. It happens. All it meant that the Devils went from two points to one point.

Frankly, if the Devils had to end their winning streak, then the one opponent who's in the opposite conference and is actually one of the best teams in the league is a good place as any to see it end. Still, the Devils got a point out of the game and they're still in fifth in the Eastern Conference for now. From a results perspective, it's not bad. From a performance perspective, I don't have too many complaints about how the Devils did against the Blues. The team ended at -1 Corsi and +1 Fenwick in even strength; which reflects how the game really went. The shootout was the only real disappointment from the home team, but I suppose the Devils weren't going to stay elite as the Blues weren't going to stay terrible at it. It happens. Should the Devils pick up some more wins soon, then it's no big deal.

I have more thoughts on tonight's game after the jump. For the opposition's point of view, Brad Lee has this recap at St. Louis Game Time.

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The Time: 7:00 PM EDT

The Broadcast: TV - MSG+; Radio - 660 AM WFAN

The Game: The New Jersey Devils (31-19-3) vs. the St. Louis Blues (31-14-7)

The Previews: My preview from much earlier this morning is right here, please check it out if you haven't yet. For an opposition point of view, please check out this preview by CrossCheckRaise over at St. Louis Game Time.

A Song for Tonight: Originally formed in Edison, Mutiny Within was a metal band that put out one full album, got some notice, but ran into other issues that forced their end in 2011. In any case, their self-titled album stacked up pretty well against other modern metal acts with their power metal-ish, metal-coreish ways. This track is a good example as any: "Reflections" Say what you want about the song, but the vocalist is pretty good at going from singing to straight up growling.

Gameday Info: The Devils aren't going to risk Martin Brodeur and his twisted ankle at all tonight. Tom Gulitti reported earlier this afternoon that the team has called up Jeff Frazee from Albany to serve as the backup to Johan Hedberg. Hopefully, Moose doesn't get hurt or get shelled so the backup doesn't become a concern. Though, if Moose is getting shelled, then maybe it wouldn't be a concern since the Devils would likely be losing by quite a bit. Anyway, that's the only change for the Devils' lineup for this game. Gulitti also reported that David Clarkson wasn't at this morning's skate but he will play tonight. If you wanted to see Jason Arnott tonight, then I've got some bad news. Tom Timmerman and Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported this morning that Arnott (shoulder) and Matt D'Agostini (concussion symptoms) will not play tonight due to injury. That very same post includes a projected lineup for the Blues, confirms Jaroslav Halak as their starting goaltender, and notes their record against the East this season: 10-0-2. Again, the Blues are really, really, really good.

As usual, you can use the comments in this post to discuss tonight's game before, during, and after it happens until the recap is up. Please remember the rules at all times. Namely: keep your comments clean, keep them on topic, and keep them legal (read: nothing about illegal streams - no links, no discussion, no requests). Go Devils!

There are about two full calender months left in the hockey season. The New Jersey Devils are on a five game winning streak and will face a St. Louis Blues team that has the same number of wins as them. For those of you who are unaware; the Devils are still a bubble team. They have a 6 point cushion from the Florida Panthers, which would drop them out of playoff contention. However, the Washington Capitals have 60 points and are the leader of the South East division, so both the Panthers and the Capitals would need to gain points if either team would want to make a run at a seeding outside being division leader.

I'm not going to summarize playoff scenarios in this article. I will break down how the Devils have scored against different divisions and what this means for the Devils playoff chances. Feel free to read a little pre-game material after the jump. (Big chart to look at if you are feeling lazy)

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Your links for today (which contrary to the title, will not put himself over the team)

Jamie Langenbrunner makes his return to the rock since he last plunged the team into mediocrity. I hope he gets booed worse than Gomez simply because he put himself before the team and quit on them. [Fire and Ice]

Speaking of Ex-Devils... here's a look at how other ex-Devils were treated [Down Goes Avery]

Cam Janssen is looking forward to face his former teammates... err watching his former teammates from the press box [Fire and Ice]

Johan Hedberg says that he will start Thursday [Fire and Ice]

The Devils aren't letting the winning streak get to their heads [NJ.com]

Greg Wyshynski wonders if the NHL needs referee challenges [Puck Daddy]

Ken Holland is good at drafting [Copper and Blue]

The Time: 7:00 PM EDT

The Broadcast: TV - MSG+; Radio - 660 AM WFAN

The Game: The New Jersey Devils (31-19-3) vs. the St. Louis Blues (31-14-7)

The Last Devils Game: The Devils went into Madison Square Garden for the first time this season and left the World's Most Whatever Arena with their fifth straight win. The Devils started the game hot and went up 1-0 when David Clarkson blasted a one-timer past Henrik Lundqvist on their first power play of the night. The Rangers warmed up late in the first period, but it seemed to be a matter of too little, too late and the Devils mostly outplayed them. The same happened in the second period, only Clarkson didn't score a goal (though he came really close). The third period was a nightmare, however, as the Rangers started the period with a lot of offensive pressure and continued to apply it throughout except for a few minutes late in the game. They put 15 shots on net and it was in the third that Martin Brodeur truly earned his team's result. The Rangers only got one past the legendary goaltender after Marian Gaborik ran into Brodeur in his crease with less than 5 seconds in the game. But the referees made the right call in ruling that there was no goal and put Gaborik in the box for interference. Despite a terrible third period and because of a fantastic performance by Martin Brodeur, the Devils won 1-0. My recap of that game is here.

The Last Blues Game: While the Devils were in NYC, the St. Louis Blues were up in Kanata, Ontario to play the Ottawa Senators. This game wasn't as dramatic as the Blues made their mark quickly. Chris Porter tipped in a shot by Roman Polak 1:37 into the game's first period to make it 1-0. A little over two minutes later, David Perron beat Craig Anderson with a wrist shot that put the Blues up 2-0 and sent Anderson to the bench. The Senators cut the lead in half less than a minute into the second period with a power play goal by Daniel Alfredsson. However, the Blues regained the two goal lead when Perron scored his second of the game 6:35 into the second period. The Senators attempted to get back into it, but Brian Elliot stopped everything after Alfredsson's goal. St. Louis won on the road 3-1. Over at St. Louis Game Time, gallagher recapped the game by stating they beat a team they're supposed to beat.

The Goal: For the love of the good and the beautiful, don't sell out the offense in the third period. I'll take a closer look at third periods later this week, but the Devils have had many third periods where they just get wrecked. Just within in the last seven days alone, the Devils played two games where the opposition simply dominated them in the third period and they were fortunate to escape with a victory. They got out-shot 24-1 by the Flyers in the third and saw a 6-0 lead turn into 6-4 in a harrowing experience. On Tuesday, the Rangers went up 15-1 in shots and Martin Brodeur had to play out of his mind to keep the game at 1-0. The Devils simply gave up on keeping the opposition honest with shooting attempts, much less shots on net, and tried to defend the game to the end. That's a terrible gameplan in general and St. Louis would certainly put the Devils away if New Jersey somehow gets lead after the second period and tried to do the same thing. Should the Devils want to win and secure a result, they cannot give up attacking entirely, they cannot just dump-and-change for the game's final 20 minutes, and they cannot respond with very little when the other team just marches into New Jersey's end of the rink over and over. There must be some level of offense by Devils in all three periods.

I have many more thoughts on tonight's game after the jump. For the opposition's take, please check out St. Louis Game Time.

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Gabe Desjardins has come up with a brand new feature at Behind the Net: game-by-game player graphs. The graphs chart out a player's Fenwick ratio (shooting attempts for vs. against without blocks), goal ratio (for vs. against), and offensive zone start percentage over the course of a NHL season. Gabe recently announced and released the graphs for this season over at Arctic Ice Hockey. Player graphs will be updated daily at Behind the Net and he has them for as far back as 2007-08. Who knows, more may be added or modified in the future. In any case, the current graphs are great way to quickly see how a player has been doing on the ice and where they are starting over the course of a season.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to take a look at a few of them for one of the most popular New Jersey Devils: Ilya Kovalchuk. He was acquired in February 2010, he's been through three different head coaches, and subject to all kinds of praise, criticism, and everything in between from fans, experts, and everyone else. The perception on him is that he's not much of a possession player; his real value comes from scoring - and he's not doing it at rates when he was with Atlanta. With these graphs, we can learn a little more about Kovalchuk's time as a Devil. Please follow along after the jump to find out.

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Your links for today

Recaps of Last night's action [Fire and Ice][NJ.com][Devils][Devils Army Blog][RWTD][PHT]

Travis Zajac will have his Achilles re-evaluated today [NJ.com]

More praise for Ilya Kovalchuk [Backhand Shelf]

Game-by-game fenwick, goals and faceoff charts [Arctic Ice Hockey]

Lil' John enjoys a Canadiens game. What? YEAHHH! [twitpic]

Martin Brodeur led the New Jersey Devils to beat the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, 1-0. That's right, it's a shutout win and it's Martin Brodeur's first of this season. In fact, it's his first shutout win since March 20, 2011, a 3-0 win over Columbus. In that game, Brodeur didn't have to play out of his mind to get it. Tonight was the exact opposite. Brodeur had to be excellent tonight. I cannot emphasize this enough: Martin Brodeur led the Devils to victory over the New York Rangers.

The opening of the game looked as good as you could get. The Devils came out with pace and pressure. They drew a call and David Clarkson buried a feed from Zach Parise in the slot for a power play goal. The first, second, and third lines got pressure on Henrik Lundqvist. Even the fourth line wasn't abjectly terrible. The Rangers came alive late in the first period; but they weren't that threatening. The second period was similar to the first, only the Devils didn't score (they came close) and the Rangers had more opportunities off the rush. But the Rangers either botched them or Brodeur stopped them with aplomb. It wasn't Brodeur's play in net that was impressive in the first two periods, but his play outside of the net. He was putting on a clinic in moving the puck, rarely making an error or putting a puck in an inopportune place. The Rangers kept trying to dump the puck in and forecheck the Devils; but Brodeur neutralized a lot of their efforts.

However, the third period began and it almost went awry for the Devils. They started off slow; not fatigued, but just lacking in the spark. The Rangers didn't have to dump it in so much and they created more shots. The Devils iced the puck too many times early, hurting their cause - even after a timeout by Peter DeBoer. As time went on, the Devils sold out on offense and just switched to a dump-and-change approach. Outside of an one-on-one opportunity by Jacob Josefson, Henrik Lundqvist didn't have to do anything in the third period. Adding to their woes, Bryce Salvador hit Carl Hagelin early and away from the puck, handing the Rangers a power play as they had the run of the game. Even after the kill, the Devils skaters went right back to sitting on 1-0.

Fortunately for them, Martin Brodeur didn't relent. Yes, the defenders did a great job cleaning up loose pucks. But Brodeur was just excellent when it seemed like he was the only one trying to keep the lead. He positioned himself very well; his reactions were on point; and his movement was fluid. Even after Ryan Callahan fell on Brodeur's right ankle in a collision, Brodeur remained strong in net - twisted ankle (so Brodeur said to Tom Gulitti after the game) The only time Brodeur was beaten was in the dying seconds of the game and it required Marian Gaborik to illegally and intentionally plow through Brodeur in his crease so Artem Anisimov can put home a loose puck. Thankfully, the referees correctly called goaltender interference, ruled it "no goal," put Gaborik in the box, and the final 3.5 seconds were just killed off based on position. When you have to cheat to beat a goaltender, it means the goaltender has been superb.

Martin Brodeur made 30 saves to earn his 117th career shutout and a 1-0 win to extend the team's winning streak to five games. Even his biggest critics have to recognize that he was sensational tonight and critical for the team's win. I just hope in the future, his teammates will give him some offensive support and the coaches and skaters can make a concerted effort to not fall apart in the third period. Brodeur essentially bailed out his team en route to two big points in the standings; but that's not a gameplan for anyone to rely on in the future.

I have a few more thoughts on tonight's game after the jump. For the opposition point of view, please check out Bryan Winter's recap over at Blueshirt Banter. Please be nice if you're going over there, and please be polite when you point out that, yes, Gaborik interfered with Brodeur and so the refs didn't really rob the Rangers of anything.

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