Devils win slugfest over Rangers

For one night, at least, the Rangers couldn't say a lack of scoring was the problem. The real problem was, they had too many problems to count.

Lethargic and just plain out of it defensively for all but a brief spurt, the Rangers took an 8-5 trouncing from the Devils Friday night in Newark, their first regulation loss to their cross-river rivals in 12 regular-season games, dating back two seasons. It also was the third time in the last 11 games that the Rangers have been torched for six or more goals.

And to add one extra kick in the pants: They let this one get away after the Devils let them rally from a 5-1 deficit to tie the score with 8:42 to play.

"Not a happy camper right now. Not a happy camper," Tom Renney said.

Nor should he be, not after watching the Rangers' punchline of a power play allow two more shorthanded goals to up its total to a league-worst 10, while going 0-for-9 itself and managing nothing in 14:54 of time with a man up. Not after watching Wade Redden turn 24:20 of ice time into an awful minus-4 and Nikolai Zherdev play a disinterested game during which he was out on the ice for six of the Devils' goals. Not after watching his team give up enough odd-man rushes to last a month, and not after watching the 5-5 tie his team somehow had pulled out dissolve in just 11 seconds.

"After a few goals it's hard to stick to your game plan," said Henrik Lundqvist, who allowed eight goals for only the second time in his career and had almost no help in front of him. "You start second-guessing yourself. This was just a tough, bad game."

Asked if he felt his team competed hard enough Friday night, Renney said: "No, we didn't. Our battle level needs to increase if we're going to get winning consistently again. If that's going to take a pop in the teeth, or a stick in the mouth, or blocking a shot, finishing a check, taking a hit to make a play, our battle level must increase."

It was nowhere to be found over the first half of the game. The Devils broke it open with three goals in the first 11:38 of the second, capped by Johnny Oduya (shorthanded) and Dainius Zubrus scoring goals while crowds of Rangers hung out in front of the net and watched. But after a Ranger timeout, the visitors began to climb back in it. Goals by Zherdev and Scott Gomez just before the period was out made it 5-3, and in the third, Scott Clemmensen (31 saves) allowed soft goals to Paul Mara and Ryan Callahan, the latter one tying the game at 5-5 and causing the Ranger bench to erupt in celebration.

"And then, for some reason, we just folded again," Markus Naslund said. "We started making mistakes when we worked so hard to get back in the game."

Mara gave a puck away to Brian Gionta behind the Ranger goal, then never picked up Patrik Elias on the weak side as Zubrus fed across for an easy putaway 11 seconds after Callahan had tied it. And the Devils poured it on from there: Gionta and Jamie Langenbrunner scored 2:03 apart to secure the Devils' ninth win in their last 10 games and saddle both Lundqvist and the Rangers with eight goals against for the first time since a 9-2 loss in Toronto on Dec. 16, 2006.

"A game like this, it's tough to find answers," Lundqvist said. "The best thing you can do is probably to just go on."

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