In what was no doubt a thrill for the 12,179 in attendance in Newark who for nearly three hours had little idea what was transpiring outside, the Devils topped the Carolina Hurricanes in a shootout for a 3-2 win.
Cory Schneider was solid, making 31 saves and blanking the Canes in the shootout, and both the Devils’ shootout goals came from new additions. PA Parenteau, grabbed off waivers before the start of the season, scored the game’s first goal (his fifth of the season) and beat Cam Ward in the first round of the shootout, and doesn’t the gentle banality of this multi-clause sentence lull you into glazing over, forgetting if just for a moment the state of the world?
The Devils knew they were getting a shootout specialist in Parenteau (now 20 for 43 in his career), but he’s been a pleasant surprise in all facets: The two-time 20-goal scorer, who didn’t really have a role on an Islanders team that signed him just months before waiving him, is now tied for the Devils’ team lead in goals. Don’t you care? Pretend to care. I promise it’ll feel good.
He’s tied with Taylor Hall, whom the Devils acquired in a big trade with Edmonton back in June and who finished off the win by wristing one past Ward’s blocker.
Hall also recorded his 200th career assist in the game, and I’ll level with you: None of this is really that much more interesting even when you’re not trying to use it as a distraction. Is it even helping at all? Or are you so numb these are just empty words, devoid of import and washing over you like the waves against the beached-dolphin corpse that is your psyche this morning? Please trust that I feel like writing this just as little as you feel like reading it, but it’s that much better than the alternative, which is reading literally anything else. The Devils pulled ahead of the Flyers for fourth in the Metropolitan, while the Hurricanes sit dead last in the East. I don’t know how we go on from here. What do we do? Rookie Nick Lappin scored his first career NHL goal. I’m happy for him.