Snowman On Fire

Expectations were high tonight for Devils fans: Briere was going under the knife, Marty was in net, they hadn’t lost to the Flyers at home since 2004 and well, the Flyers haven’t won since last season. After a first period of weird bounces, the Devils were nursing a lead, but then it came unglued. Marty looked half-asleep in net, the Flyers never stopped skating, and there was a parade of goals for the bad guys in white. Langenbrunner left the game with an unspecified injury (not Langs, on top of Rolston and Holik?) and the rest of the team seemed to forget how to play Devils hockey. I’m just about doubled over after watching this one.

The top line looked good in the first few games but has been invisible since Rolston’s injury. Elias hasn’t touched the twine since Game 2, and despite 8 shots on net versus the Stars he didn’t get on the scoresheet. Tonight he was a turnover machine, for no apparent reason — Vrana has speed on the other wing and Zubrus is making room in the slot - why not control the puck if your linemates are creating space and time for you? When asked to take a penalty kill face off in place of the penalized Madden, Elias was lost - lost the face off, lost his check, and lost the battle that turned into the tying goal 6 seconds into a power play. Call me cynical, an arm chair coach, a dilletante manager, and merely an adult player, but Elias seemed to be mailing this one in. Langenbrunner would yell at him if he was on the bench - and perhaps that’s part of the issue.

Down low, on defense, it seems like simple things are eluding the Devils - picking up a loose guy, lifting the stick, controlling the flow in the low slot. White’s slamming his stick into the net after the 5th Flyers goal kind of says it all - don’t blame Marty, Colin, figure out how you and Madden managed to get out muscled in your own zone.

We can only hope that tomorrow is better, and that there’s some serious hollering going on under the low-numbered seats at the Rock right now. And that Langenbrunner is merely bruised and not bent. And that Marty gets a night off to just rest up for next week, and doesn’t insist on playing less than 24 hours after a fistful of goal thrashing.

All streaks must end - Flyers going winless, Devils beating them at home, forward lines remaining consistent over multiple games. And each new streak, each new good thing, starts with something simple — mostly those things that were missing tonight.

I’ll admit it: bloggers tend to read each other’s blogs, and probably some large percent of my readership comes from John, the -ookies, Josh/Patty/crew, and my parents. Actually, once you subtract out the usual suspects, I think the Snowman gets more views from random Google searches than from a dedicated and loyal base. But I digress….

John Fisher’s In Lou We Trust is a regular read of mine, and this entry about Patrik Elias’ fan page forced me to click through and become a fan. Well, more of a fan. We already have the signed jerseys, hats, pucks and sticks; we have more Elias swag than the Devils Den, and somewhere upstairs in the maelstrom known as the Bubba Lair there are approximately 700 Patrik Elias hockey cards that chronicle his career from Albany to the strike (at which point hockey cards became less interesting).

So just how nuts can you go over Patty? How about his Czech language vanity site that has some really funny “back when” photos of Lil’Patty and the history of his hair coloration. Wish I spoke Czech, because it seems like there’s better game by game commentary there than on any NHL affiliate site (hullo, Inka, help please?). I’m now an Elias follower on Twitter, such that social media imitates real life. Here’s hoping that Elias’ twitters go beyond “first post” status and give us some interesting commentary; it’s hard to live your life publicly 140 (non-accented) characters at a time, but that fuels the fandemonium as well. And before anyone says “hej, why are you posting Elias’ twitter feed on your blog,” uh, that’s the idea — the more people who follow him, the more of his fan base he can reach in micro-content update form, and the more connected those fans feel. It’s a good thing, coupled with the Facebook and web presences.

According to the Devils team website, Elias is wearing the “A” again this season, along with John Madden. I can’t remember seeing a formal announcement of this, so perhaps it’s a subtle entree to a season in which predictions of the Devils’ demise are so frequent they go past the point of Clemensy. Perhaps it’s Sutter’s implicit call on Patrik to return to the winger of years past. Or maybe it’s just time for Patrik to be the Czech point among himself, Holik and Vrana. According to that ancient Sports Illustrated piece, we know what the “A” resolves to for Holik - and I, for one, can’t wait to see it resolve in person.

Under 48 hours, 2 days of work, and one Jewish Holiday to go.

Richard Stevens’ Diesel Sweeties is a laugh riot. I read it religiously, daily (and even on religious days, like today) and always get a good laugh. Any good artist makes you fill in the visual gaps, whether it’s leaving out every shingle or brick in a painting or forcing an appreciation for pixel aliasing when you’re wearing the red-n-black.

If you want your own hand (tablet) drawn, 8-bit pixel party shot, complete with slimming transform, anti-aging bits, and appropriate derisive expression (and the Islanders aren’t even in the vicinity of the Rock yet!), all this can be yours for a very nominal fee.

I find myself in a strange position this first week of October: There’s baseball on TV, and I am only counting the days until hockey coverage begins. In every fall since I’ve been able to carve out sports-watching time (read: after the great sleeplessness of having two toddlers), I’ve been able to cheer for some combination of New York hardball teams. This season was one to forget across the entire Tri-State area: this may be the first year I didn’t blog once about Major League Baseball until after the regular season reached its regular and final conclusion.

There were highlights: I completed my annual Willie Stargell pilgrimmage, enjoying Chicken on the Hill, sporting my Cooperstown Classic t-shirt with a large snowman on the back, watching the Pirates get demolished by Joe Torre’s Dodgers. I watched with interest as Will Venable started in a game for the Padres, joining fellow Princetonian Chris Young in the lower left hand corner of the nation. After those small flashes, though, there weren’t many other bright spots. Kind of a sad season for baseball around here.

But here’s a parting thought: anyone who blamed Joe Torre for the sad state of the New York Yankees should carefully check this week’s NLDS box scores. The Dodgers are doing more damage to the Cubs than a decade’s worth of Bartman incidents. Torre has a hodgepodge of slightly muted stars, cast off from other teams - Manny Ramirez, Juan Pierre, Nomar Garciaparra - and he’s made them into his team. So perhaps I am watching baseball, slyly, out of the corner of my eye, hoping that Joe Torre is vindicated for the wonderful years he poured his heart and soul into the Bronx.