Kovaltrick Lifts Devils By Islanders

Ilya Kovalchuk Celebrates His Third Goal

As Devils' television announcer Steve Cangialosi put it, sometimes Ilya Kovalchuk is worth the price of admission himself. Steve could not be more accurate, as Kovalchuk became Kovaltrick Thursday night with a beautiful hat-trick. The game was highly unbalanced and was a great rebound for New Jersey from the last contest against the New York Islanders. In the teams' last meeting before Thursday night, as I have discussed, the Islanders used their back-up net-minder, even with starter Evgeni Nabokov playing well recently. However, the Islanders have gone back to the status quo in net, bringing Nabokov back between the pipes. Turns out it was probably a mistake in hind-sight, as the Devils blew out the veteran goalie and his team.

Martin Brodeur Flashing The
Leather One More Time

The first period was just the beginning of the trick-ery. Kovalchuk played his own rebound at the side of the net, even after nailing the post on a one-timer. Although he connected with the iron post, he stuck with the play and put the puck in the 4' x 6' opening. Being assisted by line-mates Zach Parise and Adam Henrique, the Devs' first line had got it going on Thursday. Two penalties in the period were split by the two squads, yet there were no resulting goals.


"Zidlicky for Kovalchuk, SCORRRRREESSSSSS!!!! Second of the game for Kovalchuk and it's two-nothing!!" Those proud words of Steve Cangialosi rang the ears of all television viewers in the middle period. Sparking happiness in all Devils fans and frustration in Islanders faithfuls, Cangialosi described Kovy's power-play goal. It was answered a little more than half of a period later by Islanders' Andrew MacDonald, who scored the lone-goal of the night for New York. The rest was dictated by GM Lou Lamoriello's New Jersey Devils.

Kovaltrick Zooms By
An Islanders Player

First star of the game, Ilya Kovalchuk, clinched the name of Kovaltrick in the third period. He scored his third and got his hat-trick goal. Ilya scored a goal per period, and two of which were from his infamous one-timer slap-shots. In fact, as I wrote earlier, the first goal that hit the post by Kovaltrick was from a slapper one-timer. If that was netted, they would have all been goals of that matter. The Devils scored two more goals from Elias and Clarkson, which were just added "daggers" in the hopes of the Islanders. Even though he has been unmentioned so far in this recap, goalie Martin Brodeur has continued to be consistent and played very well. New Jersey received points 80 and 81, putting them in the 6th spot of 8 playoff teams. Luckily, the Winnipeg Jets who are currently in and battling for the 8th spot, are 9 points behind the Jersey. In other words, I'm looking forward to the Stanley Cup Playoffs! Let's Go Devs!