What a great game for the Devils on Friday night. They conquered the Predators 5-2…not only that, but Ilya Kovalchuk FINALLY got his long awaited first goal as a New Jersey Devil.
In a pleasant surprise, former Devil Sergei Brylin was in the house last night. He is currently playing for SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL [hey, that's where Darius Kasparaitis plays!]. Sergei is known to stop in to visit his old club every year (which for some odd reason, I ‘ve always been able to catch him when he’s visiting). Just good to always see the Russian in house.
Before I headed into the office today (a very rare Saturday visit), I spoke to the guys at 303:30 to talk Devils hockey…and deliver the disappointing news that I could not possibly see Dan Hamhuis (Nashville Predators) coming to the Devils after those lovely two penalties he took.
Nice try…trying to pawn off something like that as ‘good stuff’ to the Devils.
I do drop a major hint that the Devils may not be finished acquiring talent before the playoffs. The trade deadline doesn’t mean a thing to me…so you better listen to the show to find out what I’m talking about.
I wrapped up Olympic interviews last night with the Devils.
Martin Brodeur is first up on the Inside Hockey list. We’ll have a special video courtesy of the Wall Street Journal and the New Jersey Devils up on the site.
Following will be Jamie Langenbrunner, Patrik Elias, and Ilya Kovalchuk. Sorry Parise fans…I wasn’t able to get Zach, but Jamie has Team USA more than covered (after all, he is the Captain). I plan on getting post-Olympic footage from Zach because there are some elements I would like to discuss with him that goes more into the Parise family history.
The Devils have also launched a special Olympic multi-media project specifically aimed at covering the 5 Devils and 2 coaches that are representing their respective countries in Vancouver. You can find all of the links to the Devils coverage in my column (see earlier link), as well as on the Devils website.
I will say this (as far as behind the scenes go)…I learned last night after speaking with Kovalchuk that I’m going to have to brush up on my Russian and start using it on Ilya. We had an interesting time translating Russian/English last night. When I got home I realized…well, I knew the Russian word for ambassador…I should have used it so he could understand what I was talking about!
Something to also be on the lookout for on Ilya’s piece…he told me the due date of his new baby on the way. To be revealed at Inside Hockey…
