I thought Kotkaniemi had a nice night making good board plays. I always thought Fast and Marty were "passengers" in a sense on the Staal line in that Staal was the main driver of that line. So far those two have been even better playing with Kotkaniemi. I won't read much into a small sample size, but it was a good adjustment by Rod for sure. Kotka isn't getting much recognition but he had a really good game 4.
To me this game was won in the neutral zone. I think I said this in the main board, but it was like the Canes watched this game before it happened, and then played the game afterwards. They seemingly knew every Devils pass before it happened. Rod looks like a goddamned genius of a coach in this matchup. Whatever the Devs are doing, we're doing it better. We are completely eliminating their transition game.
Giveaways in game 4 were 26!! for the Devils and 2 for the Canes. The Devils fans posted that Jack Hughes alone had 6 giveaways.
This is how you beat the Devils. You make their offensive stars turnover machines. You reign them in before they enter the offensive zone. Even if you just start to do that a little bit, bad habits creep in and they start cheating more, and it frees up the Canes for more odd man rushes.
It really looks like the Devils are mentally done. They had zero push in the third. It looked like the Canes were holding back, committed to D, but they nearly had another goal or two themselves to make the score even more lopsided. I won't believe they're out until they are out. But if I had to guess, I would guess the Devils will look pretty good for the first 10 minutes of game 5, and if we score first they will falter.
