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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Here are three things the Devils can do to help their chances of moving on to the next round:
1. Score first- the earlier this team gets on the board, the better they play. Remember in Marty’s record-breaking day, Zach Parise scored early and the team just cruised from there. Scoring first would keep the crowd in the game, ease the pressure from not scoring last time out, and improve the chances of winning for the team.

2. Use the D to push the puck up- Some of the best stuff we’ve seen out of this team happens when players like Paul Martin and Johnny Oduya push the puck up the ice into the offensive zone rather than sitting back and preventing any mistakes up front. How does that old cheer go? Be! Agressive! Be! Be! Agressive!

3. Be Opportunists- The Devils have failed to capitalize on mistakes made by the Hurricanes, while Carolina has been all over the flaws in New Jersey’s game. It ’s time for the Devils to make the Canes pay for mistakes. Catch them on line switches, fire up the power play, convert the odd-man-rushes, and get traffic infront of Cam Ward. It’s now or never, so take what they give you, and then take some more.

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Yuck.  Flames are up 1-0 because they are out muscling, out working and out passing the Devils. I didn’t see Travis Zajac corrall a pass once in the entire period. When Sutter was telling his players this week that they had a standard and expectations to keep up with, I know it was not this.

Jokenin scored the goal, well positioned behind Marty and put in a cross-crease pass. It was the kind of goal the Devils score when their offense is working.

The Flames are a step ahead on each play, breaking up passes, cleaning up the boards, getting odd-man rushes. The difference is so noticable between the two teams, Sutter switched up the lines (also because Mike Rupp was stuck in the box on a fighting penalty and the lines needed to rotate).

The ZZPop line of Langenbrunner- Parise- Zajac removed Parise and inserted Shanahan, and Parise moved onto a line with Zubrus and Elias, sending Gionta down to the third line. We’ll see in the second period if this was a fluke because of Rupp being stuck in the sin bin or if Sutter is looking for some offensive cohesiveness. I wouldn’t expect the ZZPop line to be broken up for long.

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