Right about now… I’ma need my good pal B.B. to lay down a serious blues riff for me… a little somethin’ in the key of D-flat… yeah, I got a flat bunch of D’s, and too many L’s for my liking…

<<strumming blues guitar>>

I got the blues
I got the too much Blueshirt blues
I got the too much Blueshirts and not enough of the Redshirts rocking the people who Rock the Red shirt blues…
Yeah, I got the blues

I say I got the bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuues
I got the down 0-2 to your Hudson River Rival blues
I got the down 0-2 to your Hudson River Rival and you’re goin’ ta play the next two games in a building where you haven’t won since 1787 blues
Whoa, ohhhhhhhhh-hoa, I got the blues

I say, I said, I got those dadgum BLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUES!
Yeah, crazy type of blues
I got the I hate hockey not sure I’m gonna ever love it again blues
I got the I-can’t-stands-hockey-no-more-because-my-goalie-made-the-single-dumbest-play-in-the-NHL-all-season-and-the-other-goalie-looks-like-he’s-either-channeling-divine-powers-or-takin’-some-kinda-superman-pills-he-ain’t-supposed-to-be-takin’-because-we-can’t-score-a-goal-when-it-counts-against-him bluuuuuuues
I got the Swedish-flag-blue blues because everything’s blue these days from the jerseys the Broadway B*tards wear to the flag that represents the nationality of their low-down, no-good, crazy-cat goalie that we can’t score on blues

Some say it isn’t over (dah dah)
They say this series ain’t done (dah dah)
Only thing I know is (dah dah)
We stunk for two whole games when all we needed to do was WIN JUST ONE-IsayIgotthe bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuues…

Oh, manohmanohmanohman I got the blues
I got the down 0-2, probably not gonna see our pal Stanley, sadness at the Rock and it’s spreadin’ all over Jersey, this might just be payback for 2006, Gomez-is-a-filthy-traitor-Avery-needs-a-stick-jammed-up-his-nose-Jagr-is-a-priss-gosh-dam-you-Drury-and-Lundqvist blues…
And I say I might not get over
The Stanley Cup playoff…

Bllllllllllllluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuues!!!

Ohhhhh… nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

B.B. King ladies and gentlemen! Let’s hope B.C. is as good as B.B. — I don’t need to see Notre Dame AND the Rangers ruin my weekend.

Alright… it’s Friday night, I have no date, a two-liter bottle of Schweppes, and 13″ of Devils hockey on TV at my apartment. Let’s rock!

Ok, I paraphrased that line from the episode of Futurama where main character Fry ends up spending a Saturday night playing a “real-life” form of the old-school video game Space Invaders in order to save the world. (He actually had Shasta instead of Schweppes and an all-Rush mix tape instead of the Devils, but details, details.) All those unfamiliar with the cartoon that is The Simpsons’ hilarious distant cousin should go here (and check out #16 to hear the original quote).

Anyway, to make things interesting, I’m blogging in real time. Away we go!…

(7:55 pm): In the MSG+ pre-game, Doc and Chico compared the Zubrus-Rupp-Clarkson line to the Crash Line of 1995 vintage. If they help us win the Cup, I’ll let it slide, but it’s tough for me to draw those comparisons when there are so many fond memories of Peluso, Holik and McKay mixing it up with opposing forwards. Anyway, the Flyers lead 1-0 after the 1st period on a goal given to RJ Umberger… which should have gone to Mike Mottau because he redirected it past his own goalie. Oh, Mottau, how could you??? At least the Frozen Four isn’t until next weekend, so he has plenty of time to reverse any bad karma for BC.

(8:00 pm): Other first-period thoughts… Madden had a great short-handed breakaway but couldn’t convert. What the heck? Scoring short-handed is like his trademark, does he even have any SHGs this season? Also, Brodeur looks relatively spry for his 40th straight start. See, I don’t necessary have a problem with him making so many starts in a row since he’s done it in the playoffs. BUT, he’s never done 40+ in a row going into the playoffs, which means any lengthy Cup run will either A) kill him or B) not happen. Hmmmm.

Second period in Philly is underway. Elsewhere, Icelanders lead the Broadway B*tards 1-0 thanks to someone whose name sounds like “Kyle the Bozo”. If he plays for the Uniondale Six, he probably is.

(8:16 pm): Mid-2nd, Devils getting outshot by the Phylers 18-7. Huh? If you’re going to tell me the final weekend is going to be a reversal of the entire year — i.e. get waxed by Philly but dominate the Rangers — ok, maybe I can live with that. But that’s all theoretical right now, and this type of play is not home-ice worthy. Also, they made up a stat, “failed clears”… FYI, Devils lead Philly in that category 8-1. I’m all for making the stats mean whatever you want, but only when they go in my team’s favor.

Elsewhere, Dan Girardi tied things up for the Rangers, but no surprise, Satan “helps” the Devils. Miro Satan gives the Isles a 2-1 lead, but do I really want to wish for the Sens over the Rags in the playoffs? Since I get burned by the old “be careful what you wish for” axiom so often, I say no. Que será, será.

(8:29 pm): I went back and checked the stats, and sure enough Madden has 3 short-handed goals this year. ‘Cause I’m on the ball. About 2:30 left in the 2nd, shots now approximately 259-9 in favor of Philly. Devils had better be sand-bagging it until the 3rd…

(8:38 pm): Almost forgot to mention: I HAD a 2-liter bottle of Schweppes, but it turned out to be half-full (and half-flat) when I went to the fridge. Bummer. It’s 2nd intermission time, or “Sutter tongue-lashing time,” as it is occasionally known. If you look out the window in a southwesterly direction, you might be able to see a faint red glow in the distance, which is radiating from the coach’s face as we speak. Er, as I write.

(8:54 pm): Ah, nothing beats a power play on freshly-Zamboni’d ice. Except when New Jersey fails to convert on said power play. I hate hockey.

(9:12 pm): I didn’t post anything right after the Phlyers made it 2-0 because I just needed some time to let the disappointment sink in. And, now it’s 3-0. The Flyers are in, the Rangers are in the process of coming back on the Icleanders, and now Sunday’s game means that the Devils might not only lose home ice advantage, but lose it to the Rags. There is a distinct possibility of an 0-8 regular season against the NYR, with an even more frightening possibility of 0-12… which I don’t even want to think about since I just threw up in my mouth a little. And now the pheeble Phlyer phans are taunt-chanting “Marty, Marty.” If I didn’t live above a family with small children, things might get ugly up in here.

(9:15 pm): Point of order: if you count the “Night at the Rock” blog that Monzo posted from his Blackberry against the Caps, running diaries have proven to be the ultimate k.o.d. With about 5 minutes left in this debacle, the Devils have been outscored 7-0 over the course of our live blogging here on Devilscast. I’m really not sure what’s keeping me from hurling my computer out the window right now.

(9:26 pm): Is it football season yet?

(9:27 pm): It’s over. The next time I get the urge to do one of these “running diaries”, I’m going to just give up and go listen to my all-Rush mix tape. Or go pop in a Futurama DVD.

The Yankees’ opening-day rainout debacle shafted me on two fronts. A) It moved the game to Tuesday night, and, since I had a ticket to the last-ever opening day at The Stadium, I HAD to go — c’mon, you don’t pass up history — and miss the Devils’ playoff clincher against the [expletive deleted] Icelanders. It did, nonetheless, bring me exceptional glee, even though I only got to see highlights. B) Since I took off from work on Monday to go see the Yankees, I lost an entire day of productivity, THEN lost an additional night of productivity on Tuesday, meaning I had to work late Wednesday and only caught the end of the Devils-Bruins game.

So, have I been shirking my responsibility as a Devils blogger? Yes. Can I pull something out of the air to make up for it? Also yes. With another story-of-my-life Friday night ahead (no date), I will attempt running commentary — by period, if not continuous — of tonight’s tilt with the phloundering Phlyers. Monzo and I have some time lined up to do a new podcast tomorrow morning.

Left-over bullet points:

•  As you can probably tell, I’m a conspiracy theorist, and as such, I am convinced that the Yankees KNEW Monday’s weather forecast was terrible, but waited to call the game until after people had spent an hour-and-a-half wasting their money on extra concessions/merchandise. 1 lemonade + 1 nachos supreme + 1 Cinna-pretzel = approximately $378. Divide that by 0 innings of baseball watched on Monday, and I don’t need to tell you that is a horrific value.
• Jamieson Jehosephat Langenbrunner IV, esq. earned his nonsense nickname by becoming Mr. Shootout Goal. Now, I give you… Zachariah Jeremiah Obadaiah Zebediah Parise, scorer of overtime/shootout game-winners on back-to-back nights! I’d add tags like a Roman numeral or “esq.”, but Boston College has to play Parise’s alum (North Dakota) in the Frozen Four, so no add-ons for Zach for the time being.
• The Broadway B*tards play the [expletive deleted] Icelanders tonight and could set up Devils-Rangers in Round One. I cannot express any rooting interest in this game without committing mental hara-kiri, so I’ll get to the closer:
• I may still be a year away from 30, but Martin Brodeur is about to hit 40. Yes, in a row. I probably should have made the Clerks joke after his 37th start in a row, but it’s just as well. I’m probably getting too old for that stuff anyway.

Thank goodness for Philadelphia.

If the Devils can’t beat their neighbors across the river, at least the Jersey faithful can take a small bit of consolation in repeated success against the team at the other end of the Turnpike. I speak of the Phlyers, and let’s face it, that’s really the way it should be spelled. Not that I have any specific distaste for Philly as compared to, say, just about every major city in New England; but be honest, who doesn’t enjoy poking fun at a rival? Plus, the city brings it upon itself — you named your baseball team the Philadelphia Phillies, what do you expect? Hm, I wonder how long I can go writing my words with a little “ph balance” (sorry, had to do it) before it gets annoying…

Relieph is really the appropriate word for the Phlyers win — the Devils’ 6-1 record against Philly this year aside — because Brent Sutter’s team finally showed a bit of liphe. In fact, I was really happy to see the coach himselph giving each of the players a pat on the helmet as they lepht the ice for the dressing room at the end of the game. Yes, if I accused coach Sutter of wearing down his team in the latest Devilscast, I have to give due credit because he showed appreciation to his players for buying into his relentless über-hard work mantra.

New Jersey also got a nice kick in the pants from my old BC pal Mike Mottau (FYI, Boston College is playing Minnesota for a trip to the Frozen Four as we speak). Okay, he wouldn’t recognize me from a Zamboni tire iph I ran into him, but as a proud Eagle alumnus, I must recognize the spark Mottau provided with his phirst-period phight with Randy Jones. Penalty minutes, schmenalty minutes, Mottau did his job and gave the Devils an emotional lipht (okay, I’m done now) — lift, and they responded with three straight goals. And while I’m on a BC kick, props to Brian Gionta too for scoring in both regulation and the shootout.

Now… is it becoming a wholly disturbing trend that this team seems to keep giving up late third-period goals? Yes. Am I going to dwell on that when I could be heaping lavish praise on Our Captain, the honorable Jamieson Jehosephat Langenbrunner IV, esq., shootout star among game-winning shootout-goal stars? No. And, I’m pretty sure that’s NOT Jamie Langenbrunner’s full name, but if you do good by me, you get a nonsensical, important-sounding name upgrade. So there.

Ok, four games to go as of this writing, Jersey one point shy of clinching playoffs. I think the Penguins helped today by beating the Rangers… no, I think the Rangers failed to help by losing to the Penguins… well, either way, those two play again tomorrow. But since the Blue Shirts lost today, which is usually a good thing by me, I send out token condolences to my Devilscast co-host Brian-son Zachariah Cornelius Forsythe Monzo XVI.

(P.S. If New York wins on the final day of the regular season, he’ll be lucky if I refer to him as BM – which is precisely what an 0-8 season against the Strangers might give me if the Devils let it happen.)

Well, I haven’t been blogging much recently because I’ve been running around like a maniac trying to figure out how to be an assistant sports editor at my newspaper. From now on, I might INTENTIONALLY not blog because I have decided I hate hockey.

The Devils hold a 1-goal lead on the Rangers for 55 minutes and 14 seconds, and then the player I dislike the most in hockey history scores to tie it up, and it all goes down the drain. Chris Drury already has 1 game-winning goal against New Jersey this year — which is 1 too many, bee-tee-double u — and 22 goals overall, and three Devils sit around the net so mesmerized by the puck they forget that he’s wide open behind them. You’re 0-5 against the Rags this year, why can’t you play defense for 4:46 longer??? And now you’re 0-6. (Sorry, had to steal that gag from TMQ).

Granted, I’ve never played hockey, so maybe the trio of dumbfounded Devils on the game-tying goal were doing what they were supposed to and I wasn’t aware. As such, I won’t call out any of the transgressors other than to say that some of their names rhyme with phrases like “fish rev skis” and “look, Hank”. PS, I really wish the Jersey shooters would have done less looking at Hank, a.k.a. Henrik “the Swedish meatball” Lundqvist, and more scoring on him in the shootout.

As for Drury, who I’d derisively refer to as “the muffin man” if it weren’t an insult to muffins everywhere, this guy seriously has to have it in for me. Not only is he from Fairfield County, Connecticut, a place I despise only slightly less than Dean Wormer despises Delta House… not only did he play hockey at BU and make me want to throw things out of my BC dorm window… now he plays for the bleeping Rangers and, naturally, sticks it to the Devils. In the odd chance that he ever reads this, just tell him to drop me an e-mail, and I’ll send him my whereabouts so he swing by for an encore of violating my mother while pouring sugar in my gas tank. (Sorry, borrowed that one from “Clerks”, and also had to clean it up a bit).

Special thanks to either Doc or Chico — I can’t remember which one said it because a rush of anger mysteriously flooded my brain and wiped out all rational thought — for noting that Nigel Dawes was 0-for-1 against Brodeur in shootouts nanoseconds before he scored the clincher. Other than that, surprise surprise, no beef with Marty yet again. Are his kids old enough to skate yet? They can’t have any less offensive firepower than the rest of the Devils did tonight, and they might not have all their shots get blocked by defenders because they’re lower to the ice. Plus, having the Brodeur genes don’t hurt.

Speaking of jeans, I’m gonna go light mine on fire since I don’t feel like wearing anything blue tomorrow, or ever again for that matter. Thank goodness I’m also a Jets fan instead of a Giants fan.