Martin Brodeur Injured At A Very Helpful Time

Devils’ coach Peter DeBoer got a little bit of a break in Martin Brodeur getting slightly injured so early in the season. The Brodeur injury instantly grabbed the team’s attention, focusing them on winning without their franchise goalie, and took their minds off of last season’s horrible start. DeBoer has been doing a lot of mental coaching to try and shake-up a franchise that, historically, has always seemed to create tightly-wound, neurotic players. For one thing, DeBoer has been riding Kovalchuk while he’s looking good, giving him over 32 minutes of ice time against Nashville over the weekend. One reason is because Kovalchuk has been skating well. But also, Kovalchuk does well with a lot of ice time, a holdover from his time in Atlanta. If the Devils can’t give Kovalchuk complementary linemates to get him going, at least they can give him lots of ice time. Historically, the Devils have never been a team to ride one player (although Jacques Lemair...