Epic Battles at The Rock

Vol. I, No. 20

Last night's score:

Ty Conklin - 29 saves

Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond - 3 minutes, "the champ"

Cam Janssens - 3 minutes, "the chump"

St. Louis Blues - 1 goal, win (and two points in the standings)

New Jersey Devils - 0 (goals, points, anything)

The pundits said that the highlight of last night's game in Newark was a first period three minute fight between Devils tough guy Leblond and ex-Devils tough guy Cam Janssens.  It seems that they politely asked each other if it was time to go at it - or to delay a fight.

Janssens said bring it on and so play stopped for three minutes as the two sparred.  Even the refs were told by Janssens to not intervene.  So who was in charge?  As the fight ended, it seemed that Leblond got the better of Janssens, even though the St. Louis enforcer has the edge in experience. Janssens has been in boxing matches 24 (now 25) times this year.  But his helmet flew off, and Leblond finally wrestled him to the ice.  They both went off with 5 minute major penalties.  

Fights are supposed to energize a team.  The Devils were so energized that they gave up a late period goal in the 1st, a clean shot without any screen that Brodeur knew he should have stopped.  He kicked the puck out in disgust afterwards.

One goal was all it took for St. Louis to prevail.  It was the first shutout at the Rock since January 8, 2009.  The Blues are now 9-3 in their last 12 games.  It is shades of last year's regular season, when St. Louis went 9-1 to get into 8th place in the Western Conference, to make the 2009 playoffs.

The real story of the game was Ty Conklin's shutout.  The Devils threw 29 shots on goal, and had three power play opportunities.  The Devs are 0-17 in one man advantage situations over the past 6 games.  They know there is a problem and are working on it in practice.  But the Blues netminder was giving up nothing.  Travis Zajac came close, hitting the pipe in the third period, but that was the closest the Devils came all night to getting a puck in the net.

Meanwhile, #17, Ilya Kovalchuk tried a fast wraparound but was denied. Poor Ilya is scoreless in his last 4 games.  He has one point in the last 5 games.  His shooting percentage is 7.2%, compared to a career stat of 14.8%.  The only good news is that he is learning the Devils defensive system; has stopped giving up opposing team breakaways and is only -1 (plus/minus) in his last 5 games.  In other words, Ilya is not yet contributing to success.  

But let's give Ilya a chance.  He's only played 16 games for New Jersey, interrupted by the Olympics.  He broke his foot on October 24th.  His young family is in Florida and his wife is expecting their first child any day now.  Reports indicate that he wanted to stay with the Thrashers through the end of the season, when he becomes an unrestricted free agent.  But most importantly, the Russian pro league has offered Ilya $20 million a year to come back to Mother Russia, where his freinds and relatives reside.  His marriage in 2008 occurred in Russia.  Some have called the Kovalchuk trade a rental.  The hockey world will know in three months where Ilya really wants to live.  The man has a lot of distractions in his life at the moment.

Hockey Rules (the world).