Post-Game Talk: Hey! We Suck! 3 Goats(and then some) of the game against the Isles

[OmNomNom]

Turned it off after the 4th goal. I can't watch this team til they get their shit together

 

[Bleedred]

Turned it off after the 4th goal. I can't watch this team til they get their shit together

This was the first game I think I’ve turned off in 2 years. I might have turned one off last year, but I don’t think so?

At 4-2 I went for my walk that I ditched tonight just to watch this game because I worked late which I don’t normally do on Saturdays and I had no time to go for my walk between the time I got home and ate and the start of the game.

 

[Emperoreddy]

If they were going to stay in the hunt, this was the week to do it.

Games at home or near home. 3 teams below them in the standings. They lost to Ottawa in a poor showing. They scored first against Nashville and the Isles and blew both leads with a PP that went a combined 0-7 in the B2B with a short handed goal scored against.

You can't lose the special teams battle as often as we do and expect to compete for anything. It's almost impossible.

 

[NJDevs26]

Woof if that post Christmas run of 6-7 games doesn’t get people fired or traded nothing will this season. It might be too late even before then at this rate but if they are still on life support that’ll be when they get declared clinically dead.

 

[Eggtimer]

Lol talk about playoffs . Whoever is thinking playoffs must be new here . There is nothing at all that even resembles a team remotely close to being able to turn it around and play at over a 100 point pace here on out . Save yourself some heartache and come to terms with the suckage .

 

[Devs3cups]

If they were going to stay in the hunt, this was the week to do it.

Games at home or near home. 3 teams below them in the standings. They lost to Ottawa in a poor showing. They scored first against Nashville and the Isles and blew both leads with a PP that went a combined 0-7 in the B2B with a short handed goal scored against.

You can't lose the special teams battle as often as we do and expect to compete for anything. It's almost impossible.

/thread. 100% correct. No need to look deeper.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Woof if that post Christmas run of 6-7 games doesn’t get people fired or traded nothing will this season. It might be too late even before then at this rate but if they are still on life support that’ll be when they get declared clinically dead.

Detroit and two games against Pitt with games against bad teams sprinkled about.

Probably need all three wins against the two wild card teams and a stretch of like 5 wins out of 6 to realistically still be sniffing around come January.

Even if they fired Ruff tomorrow and Pat Burns walked through the door it would take like two weeks for him to get the team somewhat playing right and it's already too late.

And that assumes Covid doesn't pull more guys out of the lineup the next 3 weeks. Hard to see a quick turnaround at all barring something insane.

 

[Bleedred]

Look for that home game against Montreal before Christmas or the game on the 29th in Buffalo to really get people jumping off a bridge.

I think both will be losses and if they are wins, I think we lose out in the back to back set with Pittsburgh and probably lose to the Flyers, whereas I predicted one win in the upcoming Pittsburgh series and a win in the Flyers game.

I don’t see the calendar year ending any better than 12-15-8 or some mutation of 32 points in 35 games that we will have played by January 1st. Maybe we get one more win than that 12 or maybe even two and maybe all but one or none of our losses come after regulation.

Very hard to see more than 32-33 points on the season to close out the 2021 portion of the year.

 

[Bleedred]

I’m glad to see that’s everybody’s first thought after reading that quote and not just mine.

The Geertsen stuff is really stupid. And I saw this coming. I just thought he’d play against Philly and when he didn’t, I knew it was coming tonight. I predicted it in this thread before the lineups were announced.

 

[NjDevsRR]

If they were going to stay in the hunt, this was the week to do it.

Games at home or near home. 3 teams below them in the standings. They lost to Ottawa in a poor showing. They scored first against Nashville and the Isles and blew both leads with a PP that went a combined 0-7 in the B2B with a short handed goal scored against.

You can't lose the special teams battle as often as we do and expect to compete for anything. It's almost impossible.

Of course we couldn’t get Ottawa when they were slumping due to covid, but got them when they are on a great run of games.

They just beat Colorado, Tampa and Carolina. They found something currently.

 

[Bleedred]

Really, the only thing missing from this game was Cory Schneider’s first NHL win in almost two years.

First goals of the year for Parise and Greene, first Islanders win at UBS Arena. First Islanders win this year when allowing the first goal.

 

[NJDevs26]

Really, the only thing missing from this game was Cory Schneider’s first NHL win in almost two years.

First goals of the year for Parise and Greene, first Islanders win at UBS Arena. First Islanders win this year when allowing the first goal.

I thought for sure they’d get Palmieri an empty netter to complete the Bermuda Triangle of suck

 

[NjDevsRR]

Positives:

Jack looked amazing tonight

Bratt has hit that level we all knew he was capable of reaching

Zacha is a serious goal threat each night, seems like he hits a post each night when he’s not scoring

Mercer is legit

Johnsson still generating a lot of chances

Schmid is BIG and looks like he has potential.

We missed Nico and Graves tonight which shows their value to the team.

We have good talent here. Just need to tweak the roster and make some other changes. This isn’t the bleak days of 14-15. Now THAT was a disgrace. It may feel like we are still light years away but if this team can stay around NHL 500 for the season then thats a big step forward from the last two seasons.

 

[Tundra]

Positives:

Jack looked amazing tonight

Bratt has hit that level we all knew he was capable of reaching

Zacha is a serious goal threat each night, seems like he hits a post each night when he’s not scoring

Mercer is legit

Johnsson still generating a lot of chances

Schmid is BIG and looks like he has potential.

We missed Nico and Graves tonight which shows their value to the team.

We have good talent here. Just need to tweak the roster and make some other changes. This isn’t the bleak days of 14-15. Now THAT was a disgrace. It may feel like we are still light years away but if this team can stay around NHL 500 for the season then thats a big step forward from the last two seasons.

Team needs a wrecking ball forward on the wing that lives in the crease. I don't think the team is that far off.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Team needs a wrecking ball forward on the wing that lives in the crease. I don't think the team is that far off.

Amazing how Bastian was sat, also really missing Wood. And honestly we miss that big body we had in Maltsev. We should definitely find some upgrades on wing so we have some big bodies who can posses the puck well and crash the net.

 

[NJDevs26]

I find it hard to see us not being 4-5 games below NHL.500 by January 1st. This was supposed to be our “Lightest stretch of the season” and we have two wins and maybe two shootout losses and probably 6-7 regulation losses since then.

We seem to do this every year right around this time, so I’ll take a stab.

12-14: Flyers - I’m gonna say a win just for fun. They’re due to beat us, but it would just be an added kick in the balls for us to say “We haven’t beaten anybody but the Flyers In the last 3-4 weeks but we’ve beaten them three times!”.

12-16: Vegas - probably a loss. Maybe Pete won’t have them ready to play (lol) and we’ll get a win. Probably not. Best hope is a shootout/OT loss.

12-18: @ Detroit. I think we’re gonna lose that too. Maybe not in regulation though. I think we’ll lose one of this or the Vegas game in regulation and the other in OT/shootout.

12-19: Pittsburgh: this has loss written all over it but I’m gonna say it’ll be an OT/shootout loss.

12-21: @ Pittsburgh: I say we win this one for some reason. We unexpectedly come out with a win in Pittsburgh after losing a tough one in OT/shootout at home to them two nights before this. AND we do it convincingly.

so that’s 2-1-2 with the Habs coming to town!

12-23: Montreal - This smells like a brutal loss to a bad team at home, coming off a huge win over a good Pittsburgh team on the road.

So that takes us to 2-2-2 from Tuesday and going into Christmas. Now we’re 12-13-7 on the season!

12-27: @ St. Louis - this is a BAD loss. It’s in regulation and it’s maybe a blowout.

12-29: @ Buffalo - this smells like another regulation loss and now people will really be out of their minds after this game.

12-31: Edmonton - shootout or OT loss. We’re end the calendar year at 12-15-8

01-02: @ Washington - We’ve seen this before. Wait! No we haven’t! We win! 13-15-8. Maybe this is the start of a turnaround?

it’s not

01-04: @ Boston - blowout loss.

then a back to back with the Blue Jackets. One loss in regulation and one in OT/shootout.

13-16-9

Hey that’s still not 4 games below NHL .500

Then it’s Tampa and the Islanders and I say both regulation losses. So 13-18-9 on January 13th. Maybe we win one against the Blue Jackets and it’s 14-17-9 or 14-18-8.

We might win some of the ones I had as losses and lose some of the ones I had as wins but I think on January 13th we’ll be 14-17-9 or 14-18-8. Maybe we have 15 wins but that’s it.

I agree with the general premise but you’re almost overthinking it. Here’s my stab at it:

12/14 - lose to the Flyers, because of course we will though it’ll probably be another shootout

12/16 - lose to Vegas in a quasi close game that isn’t really, maybe 4-2

12/18 - lose to Detroit, probably badly like 5-2 which will just annoy me more that their rebuild will be over seven years earlier than ours

12/19 - beat Pittsburgh because we still have a stupid good home record against them and because even we need random wins

12/21 - lose to Pittsburgh cause we sure as shit aren’t sweeping

12/23 - beat Montreal - if we ever lost that game it might actually lead to a housecleaning

12/27 - lose to St. Louis, probably another 5-1 type drubbing

12/29 - lose at Buffalo in OT…this might be the one that does lead to at least a firing

12/31 - get whipped by Edmonton like 5-2…Happy New Year

 

[Emperoreddy]

They tried to sign Coleman, were looking into Saad, and were sniffing around on Taresenko so Fitz knows we are thin at wing.

The guys we have though need to find a more effective way to play. Every team makes due with what they have and plenty of "good" teams are good because they play above their talent level.

 

[NjDevsRR]

I agree with the general premise but you’re almost overthinking it. Here’s my stab at it:

12/14 - lose to the Flyers, because of course we will though it’ll probably be another shootout

12/16 - lose to Vegas in a quasi close game that isn’t really, maybe 4-2

12/18 - lose to Detroit, probably badly like 5-2 which will just annoy me more that their rebuild will be over seven years earlier than ours

12/19 - beat Pittsburgh because we still have a stupid good home record against them and because even we need random wins

12/21 - lose to Pittsburgh cause we sure as shit aren’t sweeping

12/23 - beat Montreal - if we ever lost that game it might actually lead to a housecleaning

12/27 - lose to St. Louis, probably another 5-1 type drubbing

12/29 - lose at Buffalo in OT…this might be the one that does lead to at least a firing

12/31 - get whipped by Edmonton like 5-2…Happy New Year

 

[Chris Lean]

Not sure what you guys think but Hughes and Bratt both played great. Maybe not great but they were fine. Everyone else…. Ugh. We need to make a trade.

 

[Emperoreddy]

A PP with Dougie and Jack alone should be better then 31st out of 32nd. Even if you ice 3 scrubs with them.

It's just mind boggingly bad despite having one of the best point men in the league on it.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Honest question…what have you seen from them this season that’s any different than previous years, that would make you think they can play at a 102 point pace across 56 games? This team doesn’t have a HOF level coach, or a HOF level goalie, nor does it have a single forward who has proven to be as good as any of Parise, kovalchuk, or Elias were in their prime. That’s the kind of team we had when this last happened. So please enlighten me here where you’d think they have any kind of realistic shot of sniffing the playoffs?

My comments are less a reflection of confidence in what I’ve seen so far than a reflection of uncertainty over the next 56 games. Basically Hamilton is the only game changer they have now that they didn’t have last year and he doesn’t seem to be enough alone. As I said in my first post before I was labeled a dirty optimist, the playoffs do seem to be fading away for the team this year.

One thing I could see happening though is Hughes taking a step forward and that making the PP league average + giving a strong 2nd line in addition to wherever line Bratt is on. If that happens in accordance with solid goaltending and Smith/ Sharangovich stepping up the playoffs might be conceivable at the deadline. PP getting fixed would help tremendously as we’ve all harped on for a while now.

 

[NjDevsRR]

They tried to sign Coleman, were looking into Saad, and were sniffing around on Taresenko so Fitz knows we are thin at wing.

The guys we have though need to find a more effective way to play. Every team makes due with what they have and plenty of "good" teams are good because they play above their talent level.

Exactly, Fitz knows we need an upgrade on wing. Sharangovich, Tatar, Kuokkanen won’t cut it. But they are fine for now until we can actually get those upgrades one day.

Whats breaking their backs is the damn d zone coverage, PP and goaltending. Those were supposed to be huge upgrades this season with these new players. I can’t help to think this is on coaching (again).

 

[NjDevsRR]

Honest question…what have you seen from them this season that’s any different than previous years, that would make you think they can play at a 102 point pace across 56 games? This team doesn’t have a HOF level coach, or a HOF level goalie, nor does it have a single forward who has proven to be as good as any of Parise, kovalchuk, or Elias were in their prime. That’s the kind of team we had when this last happened. So please enlighten me here where you’d think they have any kind of realistic shot of sniffing the playoffs?

Mercer. The emergence of Mercer this season is huge. Rolling out three legit centers in this league is absolutely one avenue to succeed. So when these players keep maturing the team play should mature with them. Need bigger wingers who can possess the puck for them. Saad or Coleman types. Fix the PP and the team will be good in the near future. This isn’t like the 2014-2020 years where we couldn’t make many moves. We now have equity with this roster and in the minors which will allow management to make the upgrades needed. Its not like we are stuck with what we have anymore. People are choosing to ignore this aspect of where we are at.

 

[Maine Fan]

They won't, though, and owners know it.

You are correct, the fans won't, but they will be there next season complaining about the same thing. This season, the fans complain about the same thing they complained about last season. They are complaining about the same thing they complained about four seasons ago. Should I continue? No, of course not; we all know the owners are the problem. We accept that the Devils will not improve ever or as long as fans sit in the seats and buy Devils merchandise. I can't wait for next season. Some poster should save their posts and copy them for each season.

 

[Tundra]

I don't understand why Subban can't play more like Hamilton with his ability. Hamilton knows how to get the puck on goal from odd angles.