Snowman On Fire

There was a short blurb in ESPN: The Magazine about Colorado’s Paul Stastny switching numbers so that he can don his dad’s digits: 26. Got me thinking…..Elias wears number 26, previously sported by Peter Stastny during his time with the Devils. I’ve wondered why Elias chose 26, especially when he wore 25 and 22 in Albany (although they were taken by Jason Arnott and Claude Lemeiux at various times). A potential but unlikely explanation is that 22, 25 and 13 (his birthday) were unavailable (no Devil has ever worn #13, which seems weird given that the team’s crest invites all kinds of evil juju anyway, adding triskaidekaphobia to the mix might actually be a double negative kind of thing) so he doubled 13 and got 26. More likely is that Elias joined the big club shortly after Peter Stastny departed, and he took the logical Czech digits.

I’m always fascinated as to why players choose the numbers they do. Mogilny was 89 to honor the year of his defection and escape from Russia. Jagr’s 68 is a tribute the independence of Czechoslovakia, precursor to the Czech Republic. Crosby wears his birth year (87). Gretzky did an alliterative stint on Mr. Hockey and got 99. It’s not often that there’s a story behind the numbers, but the stories tend to add to the richness of the fan experience.

I have completed Zamboni Training School. I am not a licensed Zamboni driver, nor do I play one on TV (but I’d like a cameo in the adaptation of my upcoming hockey book as the Zamboni driver at South Mountain Arena), but at least now I know my way around the various knobs, levers and gas cylinders that grace the most graceful of slow rink participants.

The full scoop, including my weak explanation of why an ice cut involves more cutting than wiping, and how you might drive the Zamboni on a jailbreak, can be found over in my Sun Microsystems blog. This was too cool to just keep it here in my sports world.

If the Rangers lose one more game, they’ll have eight nights without any gifts. Negative Hanukah. Back to back shutouts. Fourteen points, mostly Eastern Conference points, in the toilet.

Hockey can be a very momentum driven game. Long season, lots of intra-division and intra-conference play, and anything can happen as the Devils proved in April 2006. But right now the Rangers have more Tums than Mo on their behalf.

Minor props to Santana in the title: if you haven’t listened to “Head, Hands and Feet” off of the Moonflower live album (ok, CD), you should.

Elias using his feet, me using my head (to yell): Was out of the country for the last week and didn’t want to miss any broadcasts, so I picked them up off of nhl.com using the streaming audio of the WFAN 660 AM broadcast. Given that I was in a locale where finding an ice machine was tough, let alone an ice rink, it was pretty cool. But when Elias blocked a rocket shot off of his foot and left the game, my howls could be heard back in jersey. Ouch. One game and six minutes of rest, and he’s back to full strength. He was definitely missed during the most recent Atlanta game.

Elias using his hands, me using my feet: Two assists and a goal in tonight’s Capitals game, with one of the assists a pretty give-and-go to Gomez that was wikipedia-quality definition of “soft hands.” I had to race from my perch in the kitchen to the foot of the stairs to holler up to Bubba to catch the replay. Such is life when the Devils are playing and we’re in our own house.

Elias using his head, me using my hands (to cheer): After every goal, he’s first in to glove tap, congratulate, say mokrat dekuji, or smile. Lots of smiles and good words from the captain. Whatever early season jitters Elias had wearing the “C” have gotten the hook, and he’s leading by being himself — funny, talktative, immersed in hockey.

Whoever says the Devils are boring is watching the wrong team, or at least the wrong players.

Don’t look now, but the ECAC has a tiger in its tank. Namely the Princeton Tigers men’s hockey team, which has won 3 in a row and 5 of the last six, bringing them closer to 0.500 hockey than they’ve been since the days of Jeff Halpern and Syl Apps.

We used to mangle the lyrics to the Princeton song “Going Back”, referring to our alma mater as “situated and saturated in New Jersey.” Perhaps that nomenclature is better applied to frosh goalie and former NJ Devils Youth player Zane Kalemba. He sports a 6-4-1 record, a winning record albeit early in the season, but it’s great to see our local alum standing up big in Division I hockey.

Where oh where to begin?

Listening to non-stop Klezmer music, starting Saturday night when the Rangers’ King Henrik was responsible for a menorah’s worth of red lights (with Weekes adding the shamas)?

Stewing over Saturday’s ugly Devils loss to Detroit, and knowing that a change in attitude was only a change in production away?

Listening to Big D predict a double-digit points lead for his Rangers over my beloved Devils, trash talk from one of the most polite people I know?

It was a night of freylacht: merry-making of Biblical proportion. From the opening goal scored on what has become the signature Elias off-wing move (slide to the right, pass from Rafalski on the power play and one-timer to touch twine) to the discounted 3:40 of play time after Patty’s second goal, it was fun to watch. Even Big D called to admit it was a good game.

As for the Rangers: the wheels on the bus may have slipped off early this year. No early ken a horas, no early blessings, but it’s freylacht time in the Atlantic Division.

Study in Pennsylvania contrast: Sidney Crosby has 10 points in his last two games. Two goals on two shots, and a snowman worth of assists. It’s one thing to notch an assist from a shot that gets redirected, quite another to make the laser-like, tape to tape passes that seem to be a staple of Sid the Kid. Last night’s behind the back bounce pass off the boards, resulting in a backhand flip to Ryan Malone in front, was highlight reel material this morning. Life is good for the #1 draft pick.

Then there’s Petr Nedved. A pair of shots, one goal, and a low yo (that would be -11 to mash most appropriate craps and plus/minus ratings) in ten games. Nedved was waived for the second time this season by the Flyers, and after clearing waivers he ended up back with the Phantoms in the AHL. In a way, I feel for the guy — he’s lost his glamorous wife (Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated model Veronika Varekova) and his glamorous job in the same year. A winter of discontent, indeed. Life sucks for the #2 draft pick. Nedved was chosen second in the 1990 draft, ahead of another Czech guy named Jagr taken 5th by the Penguins in the and Martin Brodeur, chosen 20th by the Devils.

If a streak (like the Red Wing’s 13 years without a win) falls in the Meadowlands, and there’s nobody in the stands to hear it, does it still matter? If you’re on the short end of a 2-1 decision, which was a turnaround from a one-goal lead, yes. The Wings pulled one out of the swamp today and Elias was held pointless — not a bad way of describing the past three Devils outings. That’s the end of Patty’s streak: eight was enough.

It’s hard to say what’s wrong other than the same thing that plagued the team during their last slump (only last month): no goals. Devils-Rangers on Sunday, with both teams having played today, should be a good test of the derivative on this mid-season curve — trending up or sliding down?

Each streak starts with one thing — a goal, a point, a win, a solid period. Each thing builds on the other. Building is the operative word here.

Borat isn’t the only person to emerge from Kazakhstan: Max Birbraer was born in the Kazakh Republic, emigrated to Israel (yes, he’s Jewish), was recruited to play junior hockey in Canada, then got drafted in the 2000 entry draft’s third round by the NJ Devils.

From there it was Albany, the ECHL, and now the Cardiff Devils in Wales. Yes, there’s hockey in the United Kingdom. And on December 23, there really will be a Christmas in Wales, as the Cardiff Devils don a red-green-white jersey that’s a bizarre mashup of Dr. Seuss’ Grinch, an old school NJ Devils jersey, and a pretty slick Devils logo. If it gets butts in seats, there are folks in Newark who should pay attention.

The Lowell Devils (the NJ Devils’ AHL affiliate) are currently coached by Kurt Kleinendorst, who formerly coached the Manchester team in the Elite UK league — the Cardiff Devils’ opponent for the red and green fest. There’s probably some bit of harmonic convergence and cosmic karmic significance, but it’s lost on me.

Not Will Ferrell in “Old School” but the Devils in Old Town Boston. A few miscues in the Sabres game resulted in quick goals, and then what I can only describe as random penalties (by the blueliners) cost them power play goals in Boston.

Elias continues on his little points streak, now ending up on 8 consecutive scoresheets. That’s the good news. Five in a row of them involved wins; the perfect hand is bookended by ugly losses. What’s scarier is that Elias leads the team in two diametrically opposed statistical categories: points and negative plus/minus, that is, he’s got the team’s worst plus/minus rating. He’s scoring, mostly on the power play of late (which does nothing to diminish his diminished rating), but he’s also on the ice for a lot of goals against. Surprising for a guy who once led the league in plus/minus, perhaps indicative of a need to simplify things on the ice.

What’s worse than a 12-hour staff meeting? Having the nhl.com scoresheet update with a Bruins goal, popping it in front of your presentation while you’re trying to act less distracted and distraught than you are. Minus one, my bad.