Yahoo Sports has the recap on tonight’s stressful, yet awesome one-goal victory.

Don’t forget to check out "My live blog cast" in tonight’s contest and several more this season. I will do my best to keep you afloat, up the minute of all Devils news, rumors, transactions, and injury reports.

As always, Fire and Ice’s Tom Gulliti was in attendance for "Another crazy night" between these these two teams. Gulliti is the New Jersey Devils beat writer for the Bergen Record, a North Jersey local paper.

The New Jersey Devils won a wild 6-5 shootout over the winless Thrashers tonight behind the leadership of assistant captain Patrik Elias. It was his first two goals of the season, both power play opportunities that led this team to victory, the latter coming with less than a minute remaining in the game.

Head coach Brent Sutter was feeling ill before Friday’s practice, but rejoined the team in time for the game Saturday night, according to Fire and Ice’s Tom Gulliti.

Elias' first goal, on the power play, gave the Devils a 2-1 lead. Travis Zajac and Zach Parise were credited with assists on Elias’ goal.

Teammate John Madden had opened the scoring less than two minutes into the contest, also on the man advantage. Danius Zubrus and Arron Asham assisted on Madden's third of the season.

The sports cliché “No lead is complete until the final whistle” definitely suited tonight’s goal-happy contest by both teams.

Thrashers Darren Haydar tied the contest 35 seconds after Madden’s tally before Elias closed out the first period with the second and not final Devils power play goal of the night.

In the second period, the Thrashers were much more efficient offensively, scoring three times on goaltender Martin Brodeur, who earned a much-needed first win of the season, after starting 0-3.

Ilya Kovalchuk scored the first of his two goals tonight, merely 22 seconds after stepping foot onto the ice, in the second period. Arron Asham’s late first period hooking penalty resulted in this goal. Garnet Exelby put one by Brodeur seven minutes later on a controversial play. Brodeur was definitely interfered with, but the camera angles could not indicate if it were by a teammate or via an opposing player. Former Devils Bobby Holik scored the final Thrasher goal of the second only a minute after his teammate Exelby’s, taking what would seem like a commanding 4-2 lead going into the third period.

However, Jay Pandolfo had a huge goal with 19.8 seconds remaining in that period, to close the gap 4-3. Defenseman Paul Martin’s shot on goal was deflected away by Thrashers goaltender Keri Lehtonen, before Pandolfo located the loose puck and found the open net. It was a huge goal by the Devils as that goal generated momentum going into the final period.

In the third, the Devils resembled the Thrashers second period efforts, scoring three times and allowing one goal. A bit over three minutes into the third, Travis Zajac’s first of the season tied the game at five a piece. Patrik Elias and Brian Gionta assisted on his first. Nine minutes went by as the Devils had many chances to take the lead. In the meanwhile, they held the Thrashers without a shot for several minutes.

Continuing the Devils run tonight, Sergei Brylin gave the Devils their second lead of the season at 5-4. Zajac and Paul Martin assisted on Brylin’s first of the season, on a scramble in front of the net. Brylin swooped in on the left side and found the net. Kovalchuk would not allow the Devils off the hook just yet. He continued his domination of the Devils, 15 points in 17 prior career games, with another beautiful goal with only three and a half minutes left in regulation. Todd White deserved much credit for his crisp pass across to Kovalchuk, who was able to beat Brodeur with a hard slapshot from the left point.

Patrik Elias made Garnet Exelby pay for his holding penalty with only 1:45 remaining on the clock. The Devils controlled the power play for the majority of the man advantage until Elias’ blast from the point with 28 seconds remaining beat Lehtonen, who only stopped 29 of the 35 shots he faced this evening.

Power plays, scoring chances, and shot selection were keys to tonight’s victory for the Devils. They scored on 3 of 6 man advantages tonight while allowing 1 of 2 on the penalty kill.

The Devils definitely lost the faceoff battle, 36-25, to the Thrashers, but got to lose pucks and found the net a lot more than in the previous three games this season.

They were coming off two losses, a 3-0 shutout by Florida Thursday night after being defeated 4-2 by Ottawa last Monday.

This win for the Devils could be a turning point on the season. The Devils six goals were the most since Feb. 1st at Philadelphia.

Marty’s 1-3 record is his worst since the 2001-2002 season. He had only gone 0-4 once before in his entire career. He knew that he had to get the job done even in games like these where he allowed five goals on only 17 shots. He made a huge save with less than 20 seconds remaining in the game, definitely the save of the game, inches before the puck crossed the threshold. The win gave him 495 for his illustrious career, five away from magic number 500.

Four Devils scored their first goals of the season tonight, including Brylin, Elias, Zajac, and Pandolfo. Elias had been riding a four game goal-less streak before the two goal effort tonight. The Devils are in need of a performance like Elias’ tonight to win the competitive division or just make a playoff spot this season. He finished with two goals, including the game-winner, and one assist in a three-point effort.

The Devils have three days off before flying out to Pittsburgh for a Wednesday night showdown with 2006-2007 MVP Sydney Crosby and former Devil Petr Sykora. The game time is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on FSNY.

• ‹ previous
• 90 of 431
• next ›