I think St. Louis just outclassed us when they started to realize they had to play a hard game. Seemed like they matched the pace NJD set and they're too big for us to just command the offensive zone. The only guy powering in on the Devils was Kalinin, and that was like "once" in the 3rd.
Really poor defensive coverage reads by both forwards and defense on that 2nd goal. Saw the replay again to confirm what i thought I originally saw as it happened, and shook my head Two forwards and a defense collapse (Henrique, Tootoo, and Moore?) on a single guy in 5 on 5 (way to go guys), you know they have 4 other guys on the ice right?
Merrill actually covered his man right in that situation filling in for Moore's expected coverage. It just looked bad at the end when he realzied no one else was covering the guy at the back door. Too bad Tlusty didn't recognize at all, the gap down low, and Henrique was like 3 steps behind and couldn't catch up back to mark properly.
Merrill looked worse than he actually played it. Of course he should have cleared the puck out in the first place that started that whole sequence.
Hope they learn from that because you can't win games leaving the coverage open like that.
