DING DING DING! Round 1 of Devils vs. Rangers about to begin.

No Sean Avery tonight, and a more cuddly, controlled verson of Andrew Peters to make an apperance tonight, so the fisticuffs may wait until later in the season, but the action is moving fast and furious from the opening whistle.

The Devils score less than two minutes in, when Jay Pandolfo controlled the puck off the boards and found Rob Niedermeyer in the right faceoff circle, and Niedermeyer one-timed it into the upper right corner of the net.

The Rangers took a timeout after the Devils earned another shot on goal, and immediately took a 2 minute interference penalty. The Devils look like a completely different team than Saturday’s version, and we’re only 2 minutes in.

The Rangers kill the penalty, but the momentum is still with the Devils. And our first look at Pikkarainen, the Devils biggest offseason acquisition, is in the penalty box. 2 min for hooking. Awesome. Brodeur makes a save on his right side to start the PK.

Michael Del Zotto, one of the youngins playing for the Rangers this season, scored on a wide open rebound from the left side of the ice off of a shot by Vinny Prospal.  First power play goal given up by the Devils this season, and second goal of the season for Del Zotto. FANTASY HOCKEY TIP: Pick up Del Zotto. Now. On an offensively-challenged squad, he may be the scoring leader sooner rather than later.

Devils kill a second penalty very aggressively, and in turn create a penalty on the Rangers. Time to see if the Devils power play is less anemic than its’ Saturday version. With one shot on goal in the fifrst 20 seconds, the answer is yes.

Just as I was telling my colleague Denis Gorman that I didn’t like the Devils new power play set up, with both Zajac and Clarkson crashing the net, Clarkson gets a pass from Parise down low, and makes a sweet backhand, no-look pass to Zajac on the right side of the net. Zajac threw the puck into the upper right hand corner of the net to regain the Devils’ lead.

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Carolina 4, New Jersey 3

Ugh. Double ugh. The Hurricanes tied the game with 1:20 left on a shot by Jussi Jokenin, and 40 seconds later, Eric Staal won the series for Carolina. Brodeur was spectacular, but couldn’t stop the two most important shots of the night. Everyone was scrambling, playing not to lose rather than to win.

It’s been a special season with the Devils, and this offseason should be interesting. Who knows who will be leaving and who will be brought in. No one has seen a series go down like this one has. Everyone kept saying a full 60 minutes was necessary. They got to 57:40.

I’ll be back tomorrow with stats and quotes. For now, it’s time to shave the playoff beard, pack up the locker and start preparing for next season. Watch for improvements and additions to ‘The Devils Made Me Do It’ during the offseason. New Jersey isn’t the only team that will retool in the next few months.

Thank you to the Devils PR staff, all of the fellow writers who have helped me along during my first NHL season, and the players for being generous with their time, thoughts and opinions. It’s been a blast.

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Since I was up until 3 a.m. calculating the +/- rating of the defensemen over the past seven games, I seemed to have forgotten to do a recap.

Basically, Phoenix never had a chance. Gretzky got his team out of the building before 10 p.m. (we assumed it was because it was past the team’s bedtime - some of those guys look like they should be going to prom in the next few weeks).

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Coach Brent Sutter will not make a decision on who is in net until before the game against the Panthers Saturday morning. He said he wanted to make sure Brodeur felt good enough and really only makes decisions on a game-to-game basis.

The Panthers game on Saturday begins a back-to-back afternoon game series this weekend, finishing with Philly on Sunday. Earlier this month, the top teams from each conference came into the Prudential Center and the Devils cleaned house. Now, the two hottest teams in the league are coming, and hopefully there will be a similar result. The Flyers are getting Briere back from an injury, almost as important to them as Marty is to the Devils (key word: almost). Both teams are fighting for playoff position, so it should be an interesting weekend.

So come out Saturday and Sunday, both games starting at 1 p.m. Bring the kids. Bring a date. Bring your hockey spirit. It’s going to be a great weekend.

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