NHL

Devils may be home-icidal after latest loss

The Devils chase records on the road, their own tails at home.

They visit the Bruins tonight with a team-record five-victory road start, but the Devils fell to 1-4 in Newark last night with a 4-1 loss to the Northeast-leading Sabres.

“We’re playing with more confidence on the road. We’re afraid to make a play [at home] for whatever reason, chopping the puck,” Jamie Langenbrunner said.

Their all-lefty defense was anything but all right in its first test without Paul Martin, their most used skater, out 4-to-6 weeks with a broken arm suffered Saturday.

Johnny Oduya had an opening six minutes to forget as Martin’s direct replacement, glaringly on ice as Buffalo scored twice and enough. New Jersey does have a righty defenseman in Cory Murphy, recalled from Lowell Sunday after Martin’s injury, but he did not dress last night.

“Wow. It was tough,” Oduya said. “After that, it was a pretty even game, but it’s tough to start like that against a good team.

“We’ll try to forget about this as soon as possible, get it out of our minds.”

Already owning their best-ever road start, the Devils can equal their third longest-ever six-game road winning streak tonight. Achieve that and they can match their second-longest road winning streak Saturday in Tampa. The 2000-01 Devils closed that team-record 111 point season with 10 straight road victories. But there are issues to correct.

Jacques Lemaire would not declare Martin Brodeur as tonight’s starter, delaying the decision until today.

“I’m looking at the effort overall. It has to be better,” Lemaire said.

Oduya moved into Martin’s recent spot on right defense, alongside Salvador, and was quickly scorched for two goals. Craig MacArthur was alone at the left front of the crease, where the right defenseman should be, to rebound Craig Rivet’s point shot after 81 seconds of play, the fastest goal allowed by the Devils this season.

Tim Kennedy made it 2-0 at 6:00, moving off the end boards around Oduya to whip his first NHL goal under Brodeur, who should have stopped it.

Andy Greene scored the Devils’ only goal on a power play at 4:17 of the second, ending a stretch of 10 squandered extra-man chances in their previous two home games.

From the left corner, Langenbrunner’s centering pass to Zach Parise caromed into the right circle, where Greene was waiting for his first of the season — and only the fifth goal allowed by the Sabres in four road games.

Paul Gaustad reopened Buffalo’s two-goal lead at 9:25, open behind Colin White as Matt Ellis spun on right defenseman Mike Mottau to pass under Mottau’s backhand side and through White. Jason Pominville completed the scoring with a PPG with 2:39 left.

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All-time Devils leading scorer Patrik Elias admits he still feels pain and discomfort, but hopes to practice with the team next week for the first time this season.

“Soon. Hopefully next week some time,” said Elias, who underwent hip surgery in June and groin surgery in September.

Elias said he still feels discomfort when he skates on his own, developing his conditioning.

Initially, the Devils said Elias would be back with the team in 4-6 weeks from his September surgery, a date which passed Tuesday. He is believed to have targeted Nov. 4 against Washington as his first game, but that hope is now dashed.

mark.everson@nypost.com