1 month, 28 days until Devils’ first pre-season game

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. —

OK folks. When you’re a baseball fan, and your team is the New York Mets, July 25 is around the time you’ve accepted it’s another futile baseball season — the season’s over — and it’s time to start craving hockey again.

The other day, I got an e-mail from my dear friend, Caitlin Campbell, the senior writer at Sabrenoise.com, and both of us, without thinking really (and mind you, we hadn’t spoken in about a month) said, “Man, I cannot wait until hockey season.”

Right, indeed, Cait.

And let’s put it this way to make it really seem like it’s not that far away (because really, it isn’t).

It’s just 1 month and 28 days before the puck is dropped on Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. for the Devils at the New York Rangers for their first pre-season game in several years at Madison Square Garden.

I am hoping to be in the area that day since my 40th birthday is the day before. And I am hoping to get to that game, which used to be a yearly tradition for me because my mum could always get the seats from her office. (No one else really cared to go to pre-season games).

And honestly, I really think this Devils team is going to shut up the pundits like Barry Melrose, Linda Cohn, et. al., who will pick the Devils to have fewer points in the standing than every other Eastern team but, say, Buffalo (sorry, Caitlin) and the Panthers.

But this is one of those years that I call “Lou Years,” a season where he puts together a sleeper team that can really do some damage not just in the regular season, but in the post-season, also.

Mike Cammalleri had a tremendous season last year. And he did it all whilst he had the possibility of being unloaded all year long. It’s never easy, players say, to perform well when you’re unsure of your future — and yet Mike did just that in Calgary — he performed and performed well. So I truly expect we might see a spectacular year out of him.

And if he does, anything is possible with this team.

So here we are, just 59 days away from the first pre-season tilt. If you’re a pure hockey fan — I don’t care what team you root for — you’re ready for it. If you’re a Mets fan, you’re even more ready for it.

Those 59 days will fly by.

And with some luck, it’ll be the beginning of what we all hope is the surprise of all surprise seasons for the New Jersey Devils.

And we can erase what we all had to witness last winter and spring.

And boy could we ever use that.

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