Devils" Top Line Regains Important Piece in Travis Zajac NEWARK - After tearing his left Achilles" tendon last summer, then having surgery, then returning for eight games only to be sore and weak, then sitting out more than two months while waiting for the injury to heal, Travis Zajac is finally the Devils" top-line center again. He was promoted only two games into his second comeback, before a March 29 victory over Tampa Bay. He has played again twice with two of the most potent wings in the N.H.L., Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise, and the Devils won both times. Zajac scored a power-play goal in a 3-1 victory Tuesday over the Islanders, his first since December, and is now girding for the playoffs. It appears the Devils (46-28-6, 98 points) will finish sixth in the Eastern Conference, which means a likely first-round matchup against Florida (37-25-18), 92 points . "He looks really good right now, knock on wood," Kovalchuk said. When he returned the first time, he was limping and stuff, and you could tell something was wrong. Now, he's skating, smiling, having fun. That's a very good sign. Kovalchuk said without equivocating that Zajac, 26, is the Devils" best center. That would mean Zajac is better than Adam Henrique, the polished 22-year-old rookie who was demoted last week after playing, and thriving, for most of the season on a line with Parise and Kovalchuk. But Zajac makes the Devils whole again. He is superb at winning face-offs and is tenacious defensively. More than anything, he has been, and is again, a distributor for Parise and Kovalchuk, who have 66 goals between them going into Thursday's game against Detroit. Adam did a really good job, and who knows? Parise said. We might run into a time later in the season where we'd need to switch things up a little bit, and we know Kovy and I can play with him, and it wouldn't be a problem. But this is different. I've got four more years of playoff experience with Travis. At this time of year, he's a good person to have. Figuring that the opponent, the Chicago Blackhawks, would not have watched a lot of tape of Zajac, Devils Coach Peter DeBoer had Zajac participate in the fifth round of a shootout in his first game back March 27. Zajac scored, and the Devils won, 2-1. DeBoer's plan, at least until Zajac was injured Aug. 17 in an off-ice workout, was to have Zajac skate with Parise and Kovalchuk, as the first-year Devils coach John MacLean had planned a year earlier. MacLean lasted only 33 games, and Parise injured his knee; the Devils got off to an abysmal start and missed the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. Then, after DeBoer became the team's coach in the off-season, Zajac was hurt. He came back in December - too soon. "It was frustrating," Zajac said. The first couple of games went all right. Then after that, I started getting some soreness and some weakness, and I knew something wasn't right. I tried to just get through it to see if it was a side effect of playing, but over the next couple of weeks, it just wasn't getting better. There was a decision that the best thing to do was just to take a step back and rest a little bit. A "little bit" ended up becoming 37 games. Fortunately for Zajac, he had not reinjured his Achilles" tendon, but he needed to take his time before he came back again. These are often athletes" toughest tests, especially when the athlete had not been injured seriously before. Parise remembered how he tried to speed up the recovery from knee surgery a year ago as much as he could, but sometimes, that can be counterproductive. In the eight games he played before being sidelined again, Zajac had one goal, two assists and a minus-2 differential. After he left for a second time, Zajac said the end of his career was "something I thought about." Even coming back this time, I was hoping it wouldn't happen again. But coming back this time, I was able to feel a difference, something to compare it to. I felt I was all right, and it took a couple of games to really be O.K. in my head, and not think about it too much. After his first two games, DeBoer was ready to put him back on the Devils" top line, saying that Zajac had a history of playing with Kovalchuk and Parise - mostly Parise, with whom Zajac has been a linemate for most of four seasons. The close of the regular season would be a good tuneup for the playoffs, which the Devils made Saturday by beating Carolina, 5-0. Zajac had an assist on Parise's 31st goal of the season. In addition, Henrique will benefit David Clarkson and Alex Ponikarovsky on the third line. "He's working his way back," DeBoer said of Zajac. I don't think it's realistic, when you miss most of the year, to come back in three or four games. But he's working his way back. He's getting more comfortable. He's getting used to the minutes and the physical parts of the game, his timing. Although DeBoer does not want to see his team lose its grip on sixth place in the Eastern Conference, the Devils, who have bolstered their point total with the help of a league-leading 12 shootout victories, can afford to experiment a little this week. But Zajac is set with Parise and Kovalchuk. The Devils, who were pretty good without Zajac, believe they are even better now, with the addition of a player who has had his patience tested. "I'm not there yet," Zajac said, "but the two guys I'm playing with will get me there, and in shape, and feeling good about myself."