Ilya Kovalchuk End-to-End Winner, Devils Refuse to Go Away

February 10 2011 Last updated at 10:35 PM ET

Better late than never, I guess. After Thursday's 2-1 overtime win against the Toronto Maple Leafs the New Jersey Devils are still 13 points out of the final playoff spot with five teams standing between them. But there's certainly a bit of hope and belief for Devils fans as the team continues to play its best hockey of the season after an unexpected disaster of a start.

Nobody was playing well, including $100 million dollar man Ilya Kovalchuk, costing first-year head coach John MacLean his job and leading to the third return of Jacques Lemaire (the win on Thursday, it should be pointed out, was the 600th of Lemaire's career). Since then? The Devils look like the team they were supposed to look like, winning 11 of their past 14 games and gaining at least a point (overtime loss) in 13 of them. Not only is the team playing its best hockey of the season, Kovalchuk is also starting to pick up his game with eight goals and seven assists during the current 14-game hot streak. And it's not just his offense that's providing a spark, as he's also, but many accounts, working harder on his two-way play.

On Thursday, Kovalchuk flashed some of his offensive ability when he scored the game-winning goal with less than 30 seconds to play in overtime, completing an end-to-end rush through the Toronto defense by firing a wrist shot past goalie James Reimer.

The playoffs at this point remain a long shot, not only due to the point gap (which seems to shrink with each game) but also because of how many teams are still ahead of them in the standings. But crazier things have happened (Example: the past two Eastern Conference representatives in the Stanley Cup Finals were out of the playoff picture this deep into the season, also going through mid-season coaching changes) and the Devils are playing as well as any team in the NHL right now.

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