Two things really frustrated me last night:

Peters and Leblond both in the line up last night (seriously… WTF?) and at a point in the third period the camera panned over to Lemaire at the bench shrugging his shoulders. Not exactly a resounding vote of confidence to see that your HC is just as baffled as the you are.

Great letter. That and maybe “Don’t play Andrew Peters, please?” would be nice, especially after PL3 decided to show everyone what he’s made of

This is a good FanPost, everyone take note.

That said, I don’t agree with much of it, but ill go into depth later as this FanPost deserves an in-depth response. Something I can’t really do by mobile at this point.

We started the season with gathering “the points” (except the first 2 games) now it’s time to cast them away. I understand the concern and the frustration, but relax people. It’s just part of the show called NHL. If teams like TML were not allowed to win from time to time there would not be the league as we know it. So relax seat back and trust in Lou, that’s all we can do. I hope one thing that is certain is that Devils will make it to the playoffs and then it will be a Forrest Gump setting: playoffs are like a box of chocolates you never know which team is gonna win.
Good luck everybody!
Let’s Go Devils!!

I am truly confident that we will be fine in the long run too, it has just been frustrating as of late to see us play below our potential. And I TOTALLY agree with the PL3 and Peters remarks…not only were they BOTH in the line up, but they were both given more ice time in the third. In my opinion, when we are down by 3, neither of those guys need to be “rewarded” with more ice time.

I think a lot of what was seen on Tuesday should be thrown out on the basis that everyone had a bad game. Yes, I agree that playing both Leblond and Peters wasn’t smart, but if were to be fully honest with ourselves, it’s not like they were any worse than Parise, Rolston, et. al. on that night. Nothing was working out at all, the Devils weren’t any closer to scoring with Peters-Zubrus-Parise than they were with Parise-Zajac-Langenbrunner, Parise-Zajac-Zubrus, or Parise-Zajac-Bergfors. With the way the team was playing, they weren’t going to win.

And now a response to the initial post. Apologies if I make a few mental errors, as I haven’t been feeling well today:

Regarding #1. No, the Mottau-White pairing does work. It’s one of the few consistencies among the Devils lineup in the last three seasons, which goes across two coaches and . I don’t think it survives because the pairing is terrible. White, I think, has been fine for the most part this season. What I do think is that Mottau is being overworked. He’s averaging 22:27 per game, and it isn’t uncommon that he plays upwards of 23 minutes on some nights. As a result, I think he’s being asked to do too much for a number of reasons: the injury to Paul Martin, Johnny Oduya not having a good season, and Mark Fraser not being given more minutes. Therefore, he’s more prone to more critical mistakes, which leads to goals and all kinds of criticism. I don’t think splitting them up is necessarily going to make either a better player; but if Mottau got less ice time, perhaps he’ll be more focused and play like the duo has done for most of the past three seasons.

Regarding #2 and #3. Actually, Niclas Bergfors not playing well has a direct effect on the constant line changing. It was done so frequently against Toronto because, again, nothing worked that night. But before that game, Lemaire usually makes his changes with some decent reasoning behind it. For example, if a line is struggling at center, and now with a healthy Zubrus, it behooves Lemaire to play him at center.

The lack of consistent second-line production has forced Lemaire’s hand to try different things. Brian Rolston has been shooting, but nothing is going in on a regular basis. Jamie Langenbrunner has hit a cold snap, Vladimir Zharkov hasn’t even gotten hot in his extended call-up, and Zubrus is still settling in after injury despite two great games with Parise and Zajac. Patrik Elias is still injured and so the offense has no clear answer for a second line. Bergfors has been put on so many different lines over past games, he’s had power play time, he’s has had games on all four lines at different points. Yet, the one constant in all of this Bergfors playing inconsistently. Some shifts, he’s making passes, he’s skating hard into space, and you can see he’s involved in the play; but on others he’s completely invisible.

So for Lemaire to give Bergfors a constant spot in the lineup, Bergfors needs to show Lemaire he’s deserving. In the past month, he honestly hasn’t done that. Therefore, Lemaire isn’t going to give him more than 10-14 minutes just because he has potential, or his style of game, or because he was showing good talent in December. If Bergfors wants to snap out of his slump, then he has to work much harder and consistently harder on the ice. Should other forwards start performing with more consistency, Lemaire won’t feel the need to move players around so much.

Regarding #4, I’m actually in agreement. Fraser is pretty much the team’s regular #6 defenseman, but because he gets so little ice time, it means more shifts for Mottau and Oduya in rotation. I don’t think he’s better than Mottau, not now and not by a long shot. Fraser’s game is about being physical and solid positioning; Mottau’s isn’t. I’d like to see Lemaire give more and more minutes as the season goes on.

Regarding #5. No. The Toronto game taught the fans, I hope, a very valuable lesson: playing the backup isn’t going to spark the team. It clearly didn’t that night. Per today’s practice report from Gulitti, Brodeur didn’t ask to not play – the decision came from the coaches. I see no reason to believe that Brodeur has any actual overriding say as to whether he plays or not. It’s quite simple: Brodeur is the vastly superior goaltender, and if you want to win in the NHL, you play your best players. So Lemaire plays Brodeur. There’s your reason why he plays so much: the Devils want to win hockey games.

Regarding the results, if you have read my recaps of these losses or just watched the highlight videos of those games, you’ll notice that a lot of these goals going past Brodeur within past weeks have been off screens, deflections, and players in a position where any goaltender wouldn’t have had a chance to stop them. Playing Danis more wouldn’t change that other than Danis’ stats looking worse than they are. Regarding “rust,” in Toronto, he was beaten off two rebounds and one going through his five-hole in a Toskalaesque fashion. What would Danis playing more minutes have prevented. Maybe the third one, though given the Devils’ “offense” that night, it ultimately wouldn’t have mattered.

given that, as you say yourself: “…there’s no denying the amount of success [Lemaire’s] had, both as a player and a coach…” maybe it would be a good idea to think he knows what he’s doing and leave it at that. That’s my inclination, anyway.