Devils Hoisted By Their Own Petard, Lose 2-1 In Shootout

If it wasn’t for the freak goal for the Sabres, Marty would have had his first shutout of the season. Not that this is an excuse, because the Devils had more than 1 glorious chances to score so I would agree that “unfortunate” is the best word to describe the game.

This club is a total wreck. They suck at home, their offense is totally inconsistent despite the talent level, and once again MB30 is outplayed. This is unacceptable and downright pathetic. They NEED to fix these issues ASAP or once again their season is a lost cause. Get a clue Lou.

1. Adam Henrique owes Marty another beer. On the Leopold goal, Henrique is covering Leopold who is crashing the net, as any responsible center would. However, as the puck goes behind the net he cheats his way onto the breakout, abandoning Leopold all alone in front of Marty where he can score unmolested. If Henrique sticks to his man then maybe he also sees where the puck actually ends up and can prevent the goal.

2. Kovalchuk played almost half the game and I wish he had played more. He was the only exciting player on the ice trying to make something happen.

3. Shots,shots, shots shots. Petr Sykora needed to shoot more tonight. Hell, Henrique had four shots on net and I think he should have shot more. 28 shots may seem like a lot but the Devils put a lot of pucks right into the bodies of defenders. It was atrocious. They need to work on getting pucks on net, not on bodies.

4. Peter Harrold was not awful. He played maybe one shift on offense and then rotated in on defense for 8 total minutes of ice time including 30s at the end of the Devils first power play. He got the team’s second shot on net in the anemic first period and overall had good effort. That said, I don’t understand how this is an upgrade over Nick Palmieri or Vladimir Zharkov. I do understand he plays a sounder two-way game than Tedenby.

5. Marty looked really sharp on almost all of his saves. It’s unfortunate that he ends up with a loss for this one and misses out yet again on getting his first shutout of the season. I am perfectly comfortable with him starting against the Rags next week.

tonights game was just about awful for everyone involved not wearing #30. The Devils were already on vacation in the first, finally showed up 5 minutes into the second, and then PDB blew up the ship to start the 3rd . I dont even care that they outplayed the worst team in the east. Total fail. Hopefully they shake it off and bring 10 times that effort next Tuesday. Im not ready to sound the alarm bells just yet, i think the result tonight spoke for itself. Im expexcting more effort from them moving forward.

Every time this team finishes a game and has only scored one goal I have to keep going back to my vhs tapes of the 00-01 season to remind myself that it is possible for a Devils team to be good at scoring goals

Agree with the write up….boring game with a few spurts of excitement. if you see the boxscore and the Devils have one goal 95% of the time this team is going to lose. They don’t have the defense or goaltending to win 1-0 games. There are no Neidemeyer, Stevens and Daneyko’s on the backline or a Brodeur in his prime. We were lucky to get a point scoring one goal again. I agree it’s time to send Ryan Carter packing.

…with 3 of the next 5 against the Rangers and Flyers and only scoring 1 goal a game, it’s going to be a tough stretch…

With the turnaround going on in St Louis, does anyone else think Lou made the wrong coaching choice?

Getting dominated by two top teams probably did some damage to the Devils confidence and motivation.

It’s time to do something about the first line. It doesn’t work. Kovalchuk needs a playmaker and should be the LW on the Elias line. Move Sykora to RW and move Zubrus to RW on the Henrique line. Couldn’t hurt to try it. Without changes, I think the trend is going to be down, down, down and out of the playoffs.

I hate to join the chorus of hand wringers on this blog, but this team is really looking pathetic. If they at least had some scrappiness, it wouldn’t be as difficult to watch. But the energy is sporadic at best
Motivation is something that the coach has to stimulate. It unfortunately appears that DeBoer doesn’t have the capability to do so. We have some very skilled forwards being deployed badly, and D that may improve somewhat, but sure isn’t ready for prime time most nights. We all know the goalie situation.
It’s hard to get excited about the Devs these days. Or even keep from being bored.

Got one point. I think they deserved another for Android’s open ice hit on Kaleta. Devs had plenty of chances, jsut couldn’t crack the tender. Overly exciting it wasn’t, but it had its moments. I would have been happier with 2 points, but at least it wasn’t a calgary redux.

I think they recover from this, get the rest and come back tuesday with a 4-2 win against the Rags.

The Devils top players havent been their best players. Zach Parise and Kovalchuk have ad subpar years, its that simple. Parise looks frustrated, he missed a couple big chances last night, he is on pace for less 30 goals this season. Kovalchuck has been a bit better, but in games against top teams he has failed to come up with the big goals. Conversely, the devils complementary players (sykora, clarkson, henrique, zubrus) have had pretty good seasons. Its been a less than 30 goal pace from Parise and an inconsistent Kovalchuck who is still no where near the 40 a year man we signed that has kept the devils back. Espesially against top teams you need those to men to score.

Secondary concern has been inconsistent goaltending. Marty was pulled a few times, Hedberg had one bad game releiving marty. Marty has looked ok the past few games but nevertheless let up 3 goals and very few shots against Boston/Philly and got beat in the shootout against the Sabres. He will need to step it up after the break for the devils to win, espesially if the goal scoring from Parise and Kovy never heats up to the point where the devils know they are getting 3 or 4 goals every night.

A third dissapointment, frankly, has been coaching. Not only is the devils power play still miserable even with the loaded talent, but Pete DeBoer has changed his top two lines at all. He doesnt even have a second option to go to in the playoffs that the players will be familiar with because he has tried nothing new, despite having his top players underperform. Also, Hedberg not receiving a start in what will be close to a month after the all star break sometime is laughable considering his last start was stellar and he has better numbers than marty over the past year in a half. If pete wants his job for next year he may need to attempt to separate kovy and parise and he might need to give hedberg some more starts if marty is inconsistent or just plain average.

Even if the devils were on a 10 game wining streak i still believe the first and second line need a change. petr Sykora a trashbag. makes me wanna puke with his effort. IF it wasnt for 26 he would have 3 goals. This team has been the most inconsistent team all year. Kovy needs a stick up his ass sometimes. Break the lines up already he gets in eveyone way playing rw. All ways going to the left anyways. Just put him on the left and put parise on the right. I would take kovy over him anyday so whats the problem there.

Parise is gone probably to rangers for 8 million. So trading him at deadline for youth and picks is the way to go . A Dman and two high picks helps this team more than 2home playoff games. If they make it that is. Lou has lost ufa’s so he’s familiar with the loss of a star, think p Martin the puck moving Dman we still need. I say start shopping him now . Even his roll as captain is in question as some games he or the team is a no-show.

If parise could shoot, first line would be okay.