GDT: Devils vs. Predators - 7pm, MSGSN

[Camille the Eel]

We've got to stop the Smith hate. He's been everything we need him to be. A sixth defenseman who plays defense and is a character guy in the room.


At some point you just have to credit Duchesne and Johansson and Forsberg. They all made some really good plays that ended up being the difference in the game. It really wasn't like we were bad on those pick battles... They were pretty good.

Yes in the cooler light of the morning. The Pickets charge phenomenon. When asked years later who lost the Battle of Gettysburg, James Longstreet reputedly said, he "always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."

 

[Eggtimer]

No one is saying anything like this if Nico buries his breakaway, Jack finishes that glorious chance, or they don’t get that fortunate bounce at the end. Nashville played like they always play and stole 2 points. It wasn’t some coaching masterpiece by Hynes.

Ya it’s nothing revolutionary with the way the Preds play . Hynes is not re-inventing the wheel here. Several teams play that style hockey . Usually ones that are not fast but rather big and heavy. If they tried to match our transition and speed game , it would be a massive blow out . You could tell when they got away from clogging up the neutral zone , we got excellent scoring chances and had them on their heels . Big time .
I thought we did very good dealing with their system . Last year we could not do a thing at all against teams that play this way like Boston , Caps , etc. This year however , we slow our game down to prevent turnovers if there is no safe play through the neutral zone and in the O zone . That is encouraging as a lesser team wouod mot make ajustments and keep trying the same style of play and get nothing done .
We altered our style when needed , and still generated a bunch of hood chances . This is encouraging . We showed we can handle any defensive scheme the opposition uses .
Two very unlucky bounces against and glorious chances missed by Nico ( breakaway ) Hughes and Mercer and it would have been a 4-1 win .
Sucks but we got a point , played well , played hard , scored a PP goal . Shit luck like this happens over the course of a 82 game schedule .
Maybe it will help them improve their game and help them with playing against teams that play the way the Preds do .

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Correct me if I am wrong, but does Alex Holtz have our only 2 goals from the 2nd PP unit this year?

 

[Better Call Sal]

Correct me if I am wrong, but does Alex Holtz have our only 2 goals from the 2nd PP unit this year?

Technically, Haula and Siegenthaler each have one from the 2nd unit as well. Mercer's 1 I believe was with the top unit and Zetterlund's was the OT winner in Calgary, so I don't think that counts either.

 

[MasterofGrond]

Holtz single handedly fixing out pp2 we love it

 

[Mgd31]

Just going to watch that Holtz bomb on loop till Sat night to make me feel better

 

[NjDevsRR]

Y’all wildin’ good teams and bad teams will have games like this. Some of these posts on the GDT….woof. Sounds like we are in last place.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Honestly, especially while Bastian is out, I might put Holtz on PP1. That shot is lethal in those situations. You could put Nico in front of the net. But I also get the argument of "spreading out the wealth" a bit on the PP.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Just going to watch that Holtz bomb on loop till Sat night to make me feel better

Really his whole game looked pretty good. I want Lindy to throw him in there with Hughes or Nico to see if there’s something there. Against Philly is a good time to experiment.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Honestly, especially while Bastian is out, I might put Holtz on PP1. That shot is lethal in those situations. You could put Nico in front of the net. But I also get the argument of "spreading out the wealth" a bit on the PP.

That shot will give more room for Hughes and Bratt as well.

 

[Mgd31]

Really his whole game looked pretty good. I want Lindy to throw him in there with Hughes or Nico to see if there’s something there. Against Philly is a good time to experiment.

Yea he was definitely the best player on his line last night and one of our the best forwards overall.

Can't hurt to try him on one of the top 2 lines against the Philadelphia Phantoms.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Yea he was definitely the best player on his line last night and one of our the best forwards overall.

Can't hurt to try him on one of the top 2 lines against the Philadelphia Phantoms.

They suck, but I can feel the 3-1 loss after tripling them up in shots and chances.

 

[Triumph]

Honestly, especially while Bastian is out, I might put Holtz on PP1. That shot is lethal in those situations. You could put Nico in front of the net. But I also get the argument of "spreading out the wealth" a bit on the PP.

The league is moving away from this sort of featured shooter. I'd rather leave Holtz on PP2.

 

[John Pedro]

Pathetic the way the staff handled the PP, just wasting time

we could've had iced the game with a goal, our PP looking great. Good thing it backfired, maybe they will approach it differently from now on.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Y’all wildin’ good teams and bad teams will have games like this. Some of these posts on the GDT….woof. Sounds like we are in last place.
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Oh man were they that bad? Don’t think I have the courage to look back at them lol

 

[NJDevs26]

Yeah, I refuse to be bummed about this loss; there's a few injuries, what appears to be a flu bug going around the locker room, and they still stormed back to take a point and mostly got an unlucky bounce at the end of regulation. Shit happens.

That said, I can't help sometimes getting the same mindset I got watching the Mets from April through August this past season; I'm watching my favorite teams play at historically great paces (put it this way, the last time the Mets won 100 game I was only three years old), but suddenly that means I find my brain nagging me with "they CAN'T be playing like this if they want to make it to the Cup final/World Series!" or something. It didn't get to me last night, but I had a flash of it in my mind when I saw them get kind of sloppy in OT.

Just the nature of shifting expectations when you go from "I just want my team to compete" to "I want them to main, destroy, and annihilate everyone".

While I agree on some level I can’t envision a scenario where expectations are so jacked up to the point of feeling ‘the Devils HAVE to make a deep playoff run’. Not with a young team that only has a handful of guys who’ve ever made deep playoff runs. Whereas the Mets had an older team with an experienced manager, it was pretty much World Series or bust from May on.

I do think expectations have shifted from it’d be nice to make the playoffs but they really need to at least be in a playoff hunt, to they’d better not blow it but the absolute max goal should still be make the playoffs and don’t get humiliated (especially by the Rangers).

 

[tailfins]

No one is saying anything like this if Nico buries his breakaway, Jack finishes that glorious chance, or they don’t get that fortunate bounce at the end. Nashville played like they always play and stole 2 points. It wasn’t some coaching masterpiece by Hynes.

Both things can be true?

If the Devils solved Saros in the third, they go home with two points. But, that was a mediocre Preds team.

I think we're seeing the blueprint of how teams will need to play to beat the Devils. Good goaltending + heavy cycle to limit the Devils rush and wear down the Devils D. Limit turnovers. Clog the neutral zone. Devils still got good chances, but there was not a lot of sustained offense in the third.

I was pretty happy with the overall game. It also made me look forward to the playoffs. I think we'll see a lot more games like this going forward.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Both things can be true?

If the Devils solved Saros in the third, they go home with two points. But, that was a mediocre Preds team.

I think we're seeing the blueprint of how teams will need to play to beat the Devils. Good goaltending + heavy cycle to limit the Devils rush and wear down the Devils D. Limit turnovers. Clog the neutral zone. Devils still got good chances, but there was not a lot of sustained offense in the third.

I was pretty happy with the overall game. It also made me look forward to the playoffs. I think we'll see a lot more games like this going forward.

They did what they had to do. I’m not seeing any blueprint or coaching masterclass, it was just a hockey game where weird shit happened and we didn’t finish.

 

[My3Sons]

Both things can be true?

If the Devils solved Saros in the third, they go home with two points. But, that was a mediocre Preds team.

I think we're seeing the blueprint of how teams will need to play to beat the Devils. Good goaltending + heavy cycle to limit the Devils rush and wear down the Devils D. Limit turnovers. Clog the neutral zone. Devils still got good chances, but there was not a lot of sustained offense in the third.

I was pretty happy with the overall game. It also made me look forward to the playoffs. I think we'll see a lot more games like this going forward.

To some extent the blueprint is a hockey cliche. I’m sure teams say these sorts of things all the time when game planning. How do you plan good goaltending? It’s not so easy to limit turnovers when you are a slower team. Every team wants to wear down the other team’s defense. That’s not a jab at you. I think you are spot on that other teams have this sort of plan against NJ. Last night Saros won the game for Nashville. The bigger team was losing with 8 seconds left and should have been down more than one at that point. NJ has faced Calgary the Caps and I’m sure at least one other big team thus far. They easily outshot Nashville and had a somewhat subpar goalie performance by Vanacek and almost won anyway. If NJ skates they can beat the big strong teams. Most of the time the big slower team is tired in the third period from having to push themselves so hard. I think once Wood and Bastian return and Zetterlund can be moved to another line that NJ will be able to play a bit more cycle game as necessary. They just need to do enough to keep the opposition honest.

 

[Its Always Sundstrom]

Well, I’m never going back.

Just going to watch that Holtz bomb on loop till Sat night to make me feel better

Got some great video of it last night. It was a cannon.

 

[Eggtimer]

Maybe teams see how the Preds played and try to copy it when playing us? Clog up neutral zone etc.
But that’s pretty damn hard to do . Change up your game plan for one opponent (or maybe a couple others that play like us ). Some teams just dont have the roster and types of players to do so. But I can see teams making adjustments to try and negate our strengths.

 

[MasterofGrond]

The Preds didn't do what they needed to do to beat us, really. They didn't solve our skating or forecheck. We heavily outplayed them by pretty much every stat, despite our top pairing getting caved in.

We got goalied a little on both ends, and we made a couple poor plays that went against us this time when they don't most of the time.

This game hurts a little more, but is way less concerning to me than a couple of our uglier wins.

 

[FooteBahl]

While I agree on some level I can’t envision a scenario where expectations are so jacked up to the point of feeling ‘the Devils HAVE to make a deep playoff run’. Not with a young team that only has a handful of guys who’ve ever made deep playoff runs. Whereas the Mets had an older team with an experienced manager, it was pretty much World Series or bust from May on.

I do think expectations have shifted from it’d be nice to make the playoffs but they really need to at least be in a playoff hunt, to they’d better not blow it but the absolute max goal should still be make the playoffs and don’t get humiliated (especially by the Rangers).

TBH, with the way we have been playing, and if we happen to stay atop the Metro at seasons end, I would be disappointed if we didn’t win one round.

I have come a long way since “let’s be a bubble team, trade Sevo for a first and hope we get two shots at Bedard.”

 

[Mr Bojanglez]

We need to chill.

It was a painful 3rd and awful OT.

BUT - we were down 2-0 early in the game and managed to get a point.

Boston lost to Ottawa and Anaheim took them to a shootout. Dallas lost to Ottawa. Nashville beat the Islanders. Things happen.

 

[My3Sons]

Maybe teams see how the Preds played and try to copy it when playing us? Clog up neutral zone etc.
But that’s pretty damn hard to do . Change up your game plan for one opponent (or maybe a couple others that play like us ). Some teams just dont have the roster and types of players to do so. But I can see teams making adjustments to try and negate our strengths.

None of that is hard to do. Most NHL teams try to play that way. The issue is that at times NJ just moves so well that the other team has to basically concede the neutral zone and at times even the blueline. I think it’s part of why other teams don’t always get to 30 shots. They have to play more conservatively to make sure someone is back to defend against the NJ transition.