TORONTO – It goes from disgrace to disaster for the Maple Leafs against the Devils. The team they deliberately rebuild annually to beat and don’t, the Devils’ team they admire, has become their nemesis. It’s getting as bad as with the Rangers.

This autumn, even the blue-and-white Maple Leafs turn red (faced), then fall. This city’s darlings, their last two seasons ended by the Devils, returned here embarrassed for last night’s rematch after one of the most devastating defeats possible at this early stage of the season.

It left 34-year-old Leaf All-Star goalie Curtis Joseph reacting like a brat, a boor who fights a kid for a puck. As he left the ice after Friday’s 3-2 overtime loss to New Jersey at the Meadowlands, Joseph refused to allow Devil hero Patrik Elias a hat-trick souvenir. Instead, he swatted the vulcanized trophy down the Zamboni entrance, where Devils were prohibited from following, even in peace.

“He finally shot it down the Zamboni entrance. He wouldn’t let me have it for Patrik,” said defenseman Brian Rafalski, who was trying to pick up the puck.

It was about all the Leafs ended up defending Friday. They led the game for 57 minutes, and lost. In his first appearance against them since his playoff Elbow of Infamy on Scott Niedermayer, Tie Domi made the Devils’ attempts at revenge look futile, but lost.

“The best revenge is always a win,” Larry Robinson said. “That’s what hurts [them] the most.”

That’s why last night stood to be the Leafs’ turn to seek revenge, even as the Devils were still trying again to extract their pound of cement from Domi. Tempers stood to be even shorter.

“This isn’t over,” Domi told the Toronto Sun as he left New Jersey.

The home-and-home left Elias little time – and no souvenir puck, other than the Sharp Electronics variety given out for Puck Night – to savor his fifth career hat trick and second this season.

“There was a lot of emotion because of what happened. You’re involved in it. We almost dislike these guys,” Elias said after his clutch performance. “We wanted to do something. And, finally, we played a great Devil hockey game.”

It was a thriller, full of everything hockey has. Emotions were running wild in anticipation, and the game more than lived up to its hype. The Leafs opened the scoring 2:15 into play, and on the ensuing faceoff, Domi turtled on the punches of Jim McKenzie, and earned his Leafs a seven-minute power play. Darcy Tucker stretched the Leafs’ lead to 2-0 during that edge.

The Devils continued trying to repay Domi, without success, until Elias did it with goals. He pulled New Jersey back into the game with a PPG with 54.9 seconds left in the second. Then, with Martin Brodeur on the bench for an extra skater, Elias forced overtime with a slap off Dmitri Yushkevich with 45.9 seconds left in regulation.

Elias completed his natural hat trick with his 11th of the year with 1:34 left in OT, curling in front of Joseph from the left side of the net and backhanding the winner over the startled netminder.

*

Turns out the Devils were talking trade with Tampa, as twice reported here. With the Lightning having put a handful of players on the trading block, including Vincent Lecavalier, the Devils finally came away with defenseman Andrei Zyuzin for a hefty package of their best Albany defensemen – Josef Boumedienne and Sascha Goc, as well as prospect winger Anton But.

Zyuzin was the second overall pick in 1996, taken by the Sharks after the Senators grabbed defenseman Chris Phillips. The Sharks suspended him for the remainder of the 1998-99 season for leaving the team without permission, then dealt him to Tampa with Bill Houlder, Shawn Burr and Steve Guolla for Niklas Sundstrom and a third-rounder. He missed much of the 1999-2000 season with a shoulder injury.