NHL: “You Can’t Beat Us!”

You can’t beat us! That was the resounding chant as the final seconds ticked off of last night’s Devils-Penguins St. Patty’s Day showdown at the Rock in Newark, NJ, as the New Jersey Devils defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins, sweeping the season series (6-0), and moved into a first place tie in the Atlantic division.

The Devils broke out the “retro” jerseys for St. Patty’s Day, and goaltender Martin Brodeur had a special mask painted up for the occasion, which was a version he wore when he first arrived in the NHL. Brodeur is the only current Devil to have worn the old colors, although he wore #29 then, tonight he was in his customary #30. His mask did have the #29 on the backplate as a remembrance. Here’s a couple shots of the mask.



The Pens jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead on a goal by left wing Chris Kunitz, and the sellout crowd grew a bit quiet.

From there it was all Devils, as they tallied four straight goals and chased Marc-Andre Fleury from the game. The Penguins did manage to cut the lead to 4-2, but the Devils added another for the final 5-2 margin of victory.

Here’s a few others from the game I liked.

In the third, Sidney Crosby, who heard it from the crowd all night, ran into Brodeur and took a interference penalty, this got the crowd going even more, as they rained down the chants on the star.

A final wave to the crowd from the first star on St. Patty’s Day…St. Patrik Elias!!!

It was good to see the original jerseys back on the ice, but I’m hoping they only bust them out once a year, and keep it a special kind of thing, rather than go to it as a third jersey. I still have my “christmas tree” jerseys hanging in the closet with my wife’s. Our 11 year old son wore her John MacLean throwback to the game tonight as they had tickets, and enjoyed seeing the old jerseys, as did the sellout crowd.

What did you think of the “Green & Red’s”? How often should the Devils use them? Love to hear opinions…

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 12:35 am and is filed under NHL Photography and tagged with Hockey Stock Photography, Ilya Kovalchuk, Jamie Langenbrunner, Martin Brodeur, Matt Cooke, National Hockey League, New Jersey Devils, NHL, NHL Photography, NHL Stock Photography, Patrik Elias, Pittsburgh Penguins, Prudential Center, Sidney Crosby, Throwback Jersey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.