Their record-tying road winning streak was small solace last night when the Devils opened their longest homestand of the season last night when the Leafs came to town.

Confronted with a far better road record than the one they’ve compiled at the Meadowlands, Robbie Ftorek was asked if he believes his team to be a better road team than home team.

“I’m going to say no, because our next game is home,” Ftorek said, convincing no one.

Ftorek was hoping his Devils could again become homers in their stretch of six straight at the Meadowlands. The Devils were seeking to shut down the Leafs the way they stopped Carolina and St. Louis on the road Wednesday and Thursday, allowing only one goal on the two-game trip, because of superlative goaltending from Martin Brodeur and Chris Terreri.

Ftorek isn’t sure of the reason for the discrepancy between the 18-7-1 road record and 11-8-5 mark at home his team brought into last night, but he has ideas.

“We play really, really hard all the time on the road. At home, we play hard, but not hard all the time,” Ftorek said. “For whatever reason, it seems we compete better on the road than at home.”

The Devils own a five-game road winning streak, matching their franchise record, but they returned to the Meadowlands last night winless in their last two (0-1-1) at home, losing to Nashville and tying Detroit. Their homestand continues Tuesday against Vancouver, Friday against Washington and Saturday against Carolina, with Toronto returning on Feb. 15 and Tampa closing out the homestand two days later.

The one real difference between playing at home or on the road is that the home coach has the benefit of the last change on faceoffs, something that should benefit the home squad and penalize the road team. It hasn’t mattered much to the Devils, who have done some scoring by accident lately, during the middle of changes on the fly.

Any goals would have been welcome last night since the Devils had scored two goals in four of their last five games.

On their two-game, two-night trip, the Devils were badly outplayed by both Carolina and St. Louis, yet brought home two victories solely because of the strength of their goaltending. Brodeur allowed only one goal to the Hurricanes and was heroic against Keith Primeau, while Terreri earned his first shutout since returning to the Devils by stopping 36 Blues shots.