As many of you know I was at the Devils/Leafs game last night. Here are some thoughts/notes from the game as well as some news bits.
- According to Tom Gulitti and Rich Chere, Travis Zajac - who has missed the entire season with an Achilles injury - participated in his first full practice with the team today. It's expected that he will return and play at least one game before Christmas. This is obviously great news for the Devils as when Zajac returns in a couple of weeks they can take Ilya Kovalchuk off right wing.
- With the Devils snapping out of their four game losing skid last night, they are now above .500 once again and are just two points out of 8th place in the Eastern Conference. Considering their top two centers (Travis Zajac and Jacob Josefson) have played a combined five games this season I'd say they're in pretty good shape.
- I thought Mattias Tedenby was pretty good last night. He created several scoring chances and he seemed to have a big jump in his step all night long. Hopefully Pete DeBoer and the coaching staff realized that and will continue to reward him with top-six ice.
- Zach Parise really impressed me last night. He was flying all over the place and his motor just doesn't stop. He always seemed to come out of corners with the puck even when he was double-teamed. He really is a special player and he's starting to show signs of the Parise we saw just a couple years ago. Hopefully for him, and the Devils, he can keep it going.
- I'd also like to give Parise's linemates Ilya Kovalchuk and Adam Henrique some credit. They both played very well last night and managed to get on the score sheet. It's nice to see the top line producing like it should. Parise and Kovalchuk are now on five game point streaks and Henrique is on a six game point streak. Not bad, not bad at all.
- David Clarkson was a stud last night. He worked his ass off all game long and got rewarded for it. I predicted before the season he would score 20+ goals this season. Considering he has nine in just 26 games it looks like he'll reach that mark.
- Lastly I'd like to comment on Martin Brodeur. I'll admit I wasn't very confident that the Devils would win yesterday when I found out he was starting but boy was I wrong. It's games like those that make me feel like an idiot for suggesting he should retire.
Here are the game highlights in case anyone missed it.
New Jersey Devils Blogger • 
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