Breaking down a goal is always a worthwhile endeavor, especially a milestone like lya Kovalchuk's 400th career goal. This post by dsarch, a.k.a. David Sarch of Talking Red, should be read a little more and so it's on the front page. I've only modified the title, made the pictures bigger, and made some minor grammatical changes to the original post. - John.

As frustrating as the power play has been at times, it’s clear that over the last few months it has evolved into a unit which isn’t setting up solely for an Ilya Kovalchuk one timer. In my view there are two noticeable changes. The first is we’ve seen a variation on set plays. Recently we’ve seen the cross ice passing between Kovalchuk and Patrik Elias, utilizing Marek Zidlicky’s passing abilities, setting up down low for Zach Parise as well as setting up for a David Clarkson shot in front. These variations have allowed Kovalchuk to find more space as teams haven’t been able to press on him as they have in the past.

The other big change is that players have been more mobile in the power play. We’ve not only seen Patrik Elias play on both sides of the boards, Zidlicky and Kovalchuk have played in each of the 3 high spots and Parise has played near the goal line and a bit higher in space normally occupied by Elias.

On Tuesday night when Ilya Kovalchuk scored his 400th career goal, it was the perfect example of the benefits of these changes.

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This past weekend myself, John Fischer and Ryan Lucas recorded another episode of Talking Red and it's well worth the 100 million dollar price tag.  As always you can get it for free through the iTunes or Zune marketplaces.  You can also download it directly from the Talking Red website.  On the website we fixed the stream player so you can stream it there or you can do so from here.

For the episode itself, it's another positive episode because the devils won FOUR games this week, and against some good teams.  We also hit on the following topics:

• Improved play of Henrik Tallinder, Andy Greene and Brian Rolston
• Patrik Elias - an NHL All Star playing like an all star
• How we were surprised by how dirty Pittsburgh is
• #danellisproblems
• and why we are fully convinced the term has turned a corner - even if we don't win every game the rest of the year

I just wanted to thank John and Ryan for recording with me again.  Feel free to email or tweet us any comments or feel free to leave them below.

Thanks!

When the Devils struggle I often look at myself as the cause.  I change up little things that I do in the build up to the game to try and help the Devils win. I was recently talking to someone who switches jerseys every time the Devils lose a game he goes to.  I have one friend that always sits in the last train car because they lost two consecutive games when he didn’t do that. 

So I want to hear it, what are your game day rituals and superstitions?

 Here are mine:
On all Devil game days, whether I am going or not, begin with checking Fire and Ice to see what is going on in the morning skate.  At 10am sharp I am glued to Tom Guiliti’s blog to see who is off the ice early, you know this could be the one game Marty takes off that month?  If the morning skate is cancelled and there is no new post I am refreshing my web browser every 15 minutes until there is some sort of update.

When I am going to a game, I rush home from work  (cut out at 4:25 every time) and the first thing I do is change into game day gear.  I wear basically the same clothes to all games, jeans and a jersey or jersey t-shirt.  I also make sure to check Fire and Ice one last time to see who might be scratched for that night’s game.  My friend picks me up and we take the same route to the game every time.  When we park we use the same entrance and make our way down to section 15 to watch warm ups.  When the players begin to exit the ice surface we make our way to our seats upstairs.  On the way to my seat I buy a medium Mountain Dew, no ice, every single game from the Boardwalk shop right behind section 231 (where I sit).  The only time we don’t do this is for weekends.  Before weekend games we always make a trip to Brick City Bar and Grill for pregame drinks.

For games I don’t attend I do 2 things before faceoff.  The first is make sure dinner is ready and eaten.  The other thing I must do is double check that someone has taken the dogs out for a walk.  If I ever hear one of them barking to go outside as the Devils go on the power play or penalty kill I lose it.  One time I remember having stand outside my window in the backyard watching TV through the window (Zubrus did score and I did contemplate staying out in the cold the rest of the game).  When 7:05 comes and the opening faceoff happens I don’t want any distractions.   During the game I am always on twitter (username dsarch) doing my best to make sure that #NJDevils is one of the trends for that day.

I also have two superstitions.  The first year the Prudential Center I wore a Devils jersey but the team was on a home losing streak so I switched to a t-shirt jersey.  I kept with that tradition until the end of January when the Devils began to slump and went back to my jersey.  I’ve also given up on buying any more t-shirt jerseys because I had a Brodeur and he got hurt the next season.  At the end of the 08 season I bought an Elias and he sat out the beginning of this year and missed games for a concussion.  I will never buy a t-shirt jersey for get an unretired player’s name on a jersey again.

The second superstition is to never switch seats, which I learned the hard way. During one Devils game (I can’t recall the exact one but I think it was verse Phoenix during the 07-08 season) I had gotten to the arena early and purchased $10 seats.  After the first we moved downstairs and the game was turned upside down.  The Devils just collapsed and I vowed to never make the same mistake.  Every game my two friends and me sit in the exact same seats.  At the beginning of the year we tried switching it up after consecutive home losses and finally came to a seat combination that pleased the hockey gods.

http://www.theahl.com/headlines/index.html?article_id=9363

Jeff made a cover story on the AHL's website.  The article talks about how he came to be a starter in the NHL and notes his excellent rebound control (of course there is the dreaded Marty comparison).  The article also said that Clemmenson was the best goalie in the AHL at the beginning of the season.  Now he's a top 10 goalie in the NHL!

 He also got the win in the AHL all star game this past monday.