In Lou We Trust, a New Jersey Devils community

It's certainly not often seeing a Devils skater be a finalist for a season award, so congratulations to Zach Parise for being a finalist for the Lady Byng! The other two finalists are familiar with the award: Pavel Datsyuk is going for his fourth straight Lady Byng and Martin St. Louis has been nominated many times before. Very worthy finalists. If you want to break it down by points and PIMs, here it is: Datsyuk - 32 G, 65 A, 22 PIM Parise - 45 G, 49 A, 24 PIM St. Louis - 30 G, 50 A, 14 PIM I would think Datsyuk will take his fourth Lady Byng, but it's always an honor to be nominated.

Dave Hutchinson has a more extensive interview with Kevin Weekes, going a good 16 minutes. It's interesting as you will learn about how Weekes' became a geek real interested in technology, his opinions on other goaltenders, his role on the Devils, his charity golf tournament, and perhaps something to do with InGoalMag. It's a good listen and I recommend the interview. I also recommend Weekes' Twitter. He's coming back to NJ!

Dave Hutchinson of InGoal Magazine did an interview with the currently injured Kevin Weekes. Weekes goes into depth into the recovery process and for that alone it's worth a listen. And you want to check out InGoal tomorrow for Part II with Weekes, which is more extensive. Weekes is also featured at Maxim of all places. After the interstitial ad, the first thing I see on the front page is a snapshot of Zajac's Game 3 overtime goal and a link to Kevin Weekes' blog. I wouldn't recommend checking it out at work, but do check it out when you can. It's a pretty big deal that of all the players available, Maxim chose a Devil! As far as his status with respect to the team, Lou confirmed with Gulitti today that Weekes is out "indefinitely." Hopefully the Devils will be around long enough for Weekes to get back to, uh, being the backup.

Pittsburgh won 3-1 tonight against Montreal, so the Devils win over the Hurricanes meant they drew Carolina. Let's hope Carolina starts to tumble this coming week. The full schedule will be released on Sunday.

Gulitti already did the work necessary to figure out the Devils' playoff position. The good news is that the Devils are assured of home ice for the first round. Only Philadelphia could catch the Devils for the division, and that's assuming the Devils lose their next three in regulation. New Jersey should keep pushing for second, because I'm liking Rangers or Montreal in the first round instead of Pittsburgh or Carolina.

Gulitti has reported that Anssi Salmela has been called up. With Paul Martin's upper body soreness muscle pull the Devils do have no spare defenders. But given that Andy Greene hasn't played all that well recently, I think the Devils want to give the Finnish international another, well, shot with the big club. I think a good outing could help make his case to stay with New Jersey, really. Salmela has had 8 goals, 15 assists in 36 games with Lowell this season.

Gulitti's report on today's practice is so big, it has a picture. While it wasn't a full one, Brodeur is ready to go for full practices. A few of those, and he should be back to giving opposing forwards nightmares. Chere has a similar write up, but this bit is about how Brodeur wants to travel with the team to Florida. If he wants to keep practicing, he'll have to travel. I think it makes sense.

Well, here's something I certainly didn't expect! A trade! Sheldon Brookbank goes to Anaheim for a prospect. Hopefully, Brookbank can get some minutes there. Lou mentioned that was a reason for the trade. As far as David McIntyre goes, he's a Junior center for Colgate University. Hockey's Future has a profile on him. According to USCHO, he's currently leading the Raiders in scoring with 13 goals and 17 assists in 26 games. I don't know if he'll be a player, but there's nothing wrong with having another prospect in the system.

Jeff Klein asked me for what I feel should be a proper wish for the Devils outside of a Stanley Cup. I gave my answer and it was posted up yesterday. This will apparently be the last contribution to the NY Times for the time being as the people over there want a new voice for the next year. I've made a recommendation, someone who deserves to have more of a voice out there. In any case, I'd like to thank Jeff and the NY Times staff for giving me a larger platform than I ever could have dreamed of 2 years ago.

Tom Mantzouranis of the NHL Fanhouse takes a look at the New Jersey Devils as they are and praises them accordingly. Someone looking at the New Jersey hockey club and not denouncing them is a gift given the past 14-15 years! Thanks to my brother for finding this article.