Old Friend Brendan Shanahan scored a goal for the Devils in his first game back in the league.

Career pest Claude Lemieux also returned to the NHL, joining the Sharks for the second half of the season.

Let’s do the time warp again!

Lemieux is 43 years old. His comeback started in the low minors, continued in China and continued at San Jose’s AHL team in Worcester. In 23 games there, he did enough to impress Sharks GM Doug Wilson.

When he got the call-up, another Sharks veteran, Jeremy Roenick, picked him up at the airport.

“By no means is this any kind of gimmick or any kind of charity,” Roenick told the San Jose Mercury News.

“This is something my 12-year-old talked about every time we watched a hockey game,” Lemieux said. “He’d ask, ‘Daddy, could you still play? Are you still a free agent?’ And I would say, ‘Yeah, once you retire, you’re a free agent for life.’ My 12-year-old and my daughter don’t remember much from my career. This is a big deal for them.”

As for Shanahan, he rejected overtures from the Blues and other Western Conference teams while waiting for a team in the Northeast to offer him a deal. He finally got an offer from New Jersey, the franchise that drafted him into the NHL a few decades back.

“This is a great team I’m joining,” Shanahan told the Bergen County Record. “They’ve already got a lot of Stanley Cup experience in the dressing room, so I’m just trying to add to what they have. They’ve got some great, great young players and it’s my job to find a way to fit in and help where I can.”

He was pleasantly surprised to score right away.

“I didn’t know if things would come back right away,” Shanahan told reporters. “I probably played a little more than I expected. I still think I have a lot of work to do. This is a game that has a lot of adrenaline. It is just one game. There is a long way for me to go and a lot of building for me yet.”

AROUND THE RINKS: Vincent Lecavalier perked up amid rumors that the Canadiens hoped to acquire him and bring him home to Montreal. He scored 17 points in a 12-game span . . . Did Blues power forward David Backes scored his game-tying goal with a high stick? Well, that depends on your angle and perspective. The Bruins can’t believe they let tht victory get away. We continue to beat the Backes drum, because his improvement is critical to the franchise’s bid to contend again in our lifetime . . . If the Coyotes hold their expected fire sale, Shane Doan won’t want to be part of that. It appears he would rather stay in the Valley of the Sun rather than move to a contender . . . Senators GM Bryan Murray would entertain offers for most of his players, including, the Ottawa Sun reports, Jason Spezza, Mike Fisher, Antoine Vermette, Chris Neil, Christoph Schubert, Filip Kuba and winger Jarkko Ruutu. It’s been that kind of year.