Hey, Marty, they're called pucks, you get paid to stop them

Wow, simply wow. The New Jersey Devils utterly collapsed and pissed their season away in the span of 90 seconds tonight losing game 7 to Carolina 4-3. The Devils gave up goals seconds apart to Jussi Jokinen and Eric Staal and tomorrow after they clean out their lockers, the Devils are golfing. Jokinen scored on a beautiful cross ice pass from Joni Pitkanen (and full marks to Tim Gleason's diving effort to hold the puck in the Devils zone. Gleason could have been the goat by taking a 4:00 minute high sticking penalty in the third period) to tie the game with 1:20 to play. OK, you steel yourself and prepare for the fact that overtime is comin-----OOPS, NOT SO FAST, the Hurricanes just scored AGAIN. New Jersey fans, at some point you are going to HAVE to come to grips that your all world all everything netminder let in two softies tonight. The first goal by Tuomo Ruutu was a soft one as was the series clincher. Brodeur was not the unmovable force in a game 7 as he has been so many times in big games. This was the second time in this series the Devils coughed up a late goal to beat them. Not a good sign. The New Jersey Devils are in dire need of a top two defenseman in the offseason. A 25 minute a game stud. It was apparent they are missing this type of player in this series.

Johnny could analyze this to death but he'd be here until dawn, the fact is, Cam Ward outdueled Brodeur in game 7 and in the last 3 minutes the Hurricanes wanted it more.

Now the next part dovetails nicely. Always hyper-aware of what the Rangers are doing, Devils fans cheered when they saw that the Capitals had gone up 2-1 on a goal by former Red Wing Sergei Fedorov. They cheered loudly. Johnny was quizzical about this development. Wouldn't it be better if the Rangers WON? At the time the Devils were up 3-2, if they win AND the Rangers win the Devils get HOME ICE ADVANTAGE in the next round against Pittsburgh. Do you want the Rangers to lose or do you want the Devils to have a greater chance to win the cup? Tonight you sounded like it was more important to you for the Rangers to lose than the Devils to get home ice in the next round. Strange, that. No pragmatists at the Prudential Center it seems.

So, yes the Devils and Rangers go down in a flaming pile of fail on the same night. No more live hockey games for Johnny this year and that in the words of The Stooges is "No Fun at All"

Here's the crappiest cell phone video you'll ever see of Brian Rolston's goal, the goal that would prove to be New Jersey's last this year...And as always used without the expressed written consent of the National Hockey League