And now for something completely different.
Where did that come from?
Consider the ways in which the Devils 5-2 win over the Minnesota Wild on Monday night at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul, Minn., was some kind of funhouse mirror reflection of the horrors of the past month and a half.
The Devils beat a better team. The Wild started Monday tied with the Dallas Stars for the second-most points (61) in the NHL this season.
The Devils won a road game they had a pretty good excuse to lose. New Jersey was playing the second half of a back-to-back after a demoralizing 4-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets where twice they coughed up leads. Meanwhile, the Wild were well-rested, having last played at home on Saturday night.
The Devils scored first. New Jersey had given up the opening goal in 14 of it’s last 20 games.
The Devils scored on their first shot.
The Devils scored a goal with less than 10 seconds to play in the second period after having been pinned in their own end for significant stretches during the middle frame.
The Devils got two quick goals 21 seconds apart early in the third, showing the kind of killer instinct that’s been missing since late October.
Goal on first shot, late goal, back-breaking goals in quick succession? Was the Swede in net for Minnesota Jacob Markstrom?
No, he was in goal for the Devils, stopping 20 of 22 and posting a save percentage 28 points better than his previous outing on the Island.
Because these were the Bizarro Devils, doing the exact opposite of everything they’d done since waking up the day after Black Friday and seemingly deciding to flush their season down the toilet and get their coach and general manager fired.
In the backwards Bizarro World Ondrej Palat scores goals. Two of them in fact. He hadn’t scored in 19 games. He hadn’t had two in the same game in almost two years.
Jesper Bratt, just three goals in his past 26 games and looking like he couldn’t find the blue paint with the help of a sherpa, scored two by crashing the net.
Even Dougie Hamilton, the Devils’ $9 million seventh defenseman, banished to the press box Saturday to await a trade, slotted back in after Simon Nemec’s Sunday meltdown, and had twice as many assists as he’d had since Black Friday.
“Me so happy. Me could cry.”
Up Next
So of course they’re going to come home and lose to the Kraken right? With the Road Trip From Hell officially over, New Jersey hosts Seattle on Wednesday, Jan. 14, at Prudential Center. Seattle is red hot. The Kraken are 7-1-2 in their last 10 and scored four unanswered Monday night to rally for a 4-2 win over the Rangers at the Garden.
Your Take
So what did everyone think? Fool’s gold? A return to form? That was as strong a game as I can remember them playing in years. Maybe you have to go back as far back as 22-23. They weathered a little storm in the back half of the second but counter-punched hard, and never let up in the third. And they didn’t look miserable doing it either. You’d hope they’d learn something from this. Winning is fun, even if it’s hard work.