For only the second time in the last eight years, the New Jersey Devils will host the Florida Panthers Friday night without two of its best defensive forwards.  While Jay Pandolfo is still nursing a pelvic bone ligament he suffered on Nov. 28, linemate John Madden will miss the fourth meeting between these two teams this season with a laceration on the inside of his right ankle dating back to Jan. 11(TG).

The last time the Devils played a game without Madden and Pandolfo was April 8, 1999 against Washington.  Madden was not yet a full time player, still in Albany, and Pandolfo remained on the sidelines with a bruised right shoulder.

Tonight, the Devils will have to compensate by backchecking their forwards more than necessary against a struggling Panthers team that is 2-5-1 in the month of January and 3-7-2 dating back to Dec. 22.

Florida has been riding goalie Tomas Vokoun thus far (he’s started 42 of 47 games) in addition to Olli Jokinen’s offensive production.  Jokinen leads the team in goals, assists, points and shots on goal.

Besides for Vokoun, who is headed to the All-Star game a week from Sunday, the Panthers have struggled elsewhere, including scoring and defending the net.

They are 27th in the league, only better than the NJ Devils, NY Rangers and NY Islanders.  They have also allowed the 21st most goals

Although the Panthers have managed 30.8 shots on goal per game, they have not been able to find the back of the net very often.

Facing the Devils will not make their lives any easier, especially with seven players on injured reserve and another who left Wednesday’s game with a hand injury and will not play tonight.

On the other hand, the Devils are coming off yet another defeat courtesy of the Islanders, their fifth of the season.  Even though they went 2-1 while I was vacationing, losing to the Isles and Rangers for that matter has become normality for the Devils this season.

Outside of the Islanders and Rangers in which the Devils are a combined 0-6-3, they have dominated the rest of the league, despite several key injuries and losses during the offseason.

After Scott Gomez and Brian Rafalski departed via free agency, hockey critics placed the Devils near the bottom of their 2008 predictions.

Unlike the Panthers who are slowing succumbing to injury, the Devils have battled through offseason surgeries to captain Jamie Langenbrunner and defenseman Colin White, who have both since returned.

More recently, they have made emergency call ups to Lowell since Pandolfo and now Madden have gone down with their own scrapes and bruises.

Credit first-year coach Brent Sutter for prevailing over a grueling early schedule due to the Prudential Center’s construction.

And the Devils for never giving up until the final whistle.  This is one of the reasons they are tied with Pittsburgh for first place in the jam-packed Atlantic Division.

Another one is goalie Martin Brodeur, hockey’s anti-Patrick Roy if you will.

After a slow yet historically typical start by Brodeur, he has turned the corner, as expected.  He is 24-14-2 with a 2.10GAA, .920 SV% and four shutouts, yet ranks ninth among highest paid players at his position.

In addition, D Karel Rachunek will return to the lineup tonight after missing the last 10 games with a bum knee/ankle, depending on who you asked.

Unlike last game against Florida in which the Devils were forced to use Barry Talackson and Noah Clarke in their lineup, they will use seven defensemen tonight and three full lines.  Clarke contributed a goal in that meeting, a 3-2 Devils win.

Sutter said that he preferred four full lines and six men covering the blue line, but considering the circumstances, GM Lou Lamoriello agreed with his decision.

No, the Devils do not have a prolific scorer like Alexander Ovechkin, who locked up a lifetime guarantee over a week ago, or even Columbus Blue Jackets Rick Nash, who possibly scored the goal of the century last night.

But they have the ultimate team, where everyone is equally important to the team’s success.

If the Devils plan to conquer a weak Panthers team, they must focus on the power play, which failed them on five separate occasions versus the Islanders and
ranks 27th in the league with a 14.6 percent of return.

In the stock market, which is crumbling faster than the Kingdome upon demolition, people dream for this kind of return, but not in the NHL special teams department.

Top 10 teams average between 18.9 and 24.2 percent, and although the Devils are in second place in the Eastern Conference, they will need to improve their power play efficiency to exceed far into the playoffs.

For the Panthers, they will use many minor league players tonight in hopes of stealing one in the downtown Newark arena, where the Devils are blazing at 13-6.

Even if this game were to take place in Sunrise, Florida, the Devils would have still been considered the favorites, considering they are 13-10-3 on the road, while the Panthers are a measly 9-11-3 at home.

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