GDT: Game # 67: Devils host Lightning @7pm ET

[BurntToast]

Play freakin defense. The first two goals are terrible 2 on 1 defense.

1) First goal should of been a 2 on 2 but Dougie had a brain fart.

2) The 2nd goal, Graves commits to nothing. Laying down doesn't mean he stopped the pass. Hagel gets to waltz right up to the goalie.

3) On the 3rd goal, Bratt gets ragged all the way down the boards. Then his guy sends a 1 timer to Killorn in the slot, who was wide open.

4) The 4th goal could of been challenged for offside. The Devils let Kuh and Point skate down the middle. It was a freaking deflection.

You guys are mad that a 9mil HOF goalie out played Vtech.

The Devils struggled to get pucks to the net. Lots of missed passed, lots of posts, and obstruction/interference isn’t a penalty this time of year.

 

[Peter Sidorkiewicz]

Sharangovich should get back into lineup next game for Wood?

 

[My3Sons]

View attachment 669238View attachment 669239

LOL. What a horrendous take!! Blackwood will eventually return from deep space like the creature in alien and he will burn a hole through the ice with his acid blood and you will eat crow!!! Ok he will probably injure himself with his own acid blood but he will be amazing for at least ten minutes before then! And he will be a 920 goalie for those ten minutes!!!

 

[Emperoreddy]

Honestly watching live I thought that was one of our worst games all year. 1st was fine until that awful PP.

But bulk of the game they looked slow. The passing was super sloppy and they put the white flag up early in the 3rd.

 

[TrufleShufle]

Honestly watching live I thought that was one of our worst games all year. 1st was fine until that awful PP.

But bulk of the game they looked slow. The passing was super sloppy and they put the white flag up early in the 3rd.

Someone show this guy the heat map please. I'm tired of hearing from people who "watched" the game

 

[Emperoreddy]

Every single player to a man in the Devils locker room knows they played like shit.

You can justify that game in October, November, December, January and maybe even February... middle March, that was was a horseshit performance.

If the plan was to treat these 3 games against Tampa like a playoff series, they completely shit the bed in this "game 1"

I'm sure the boys know it and I hope Ruff laid into them for it too though

 

[Camille the Eel]

Play freakin defense. The first two goals are terrible 2 on 1 defense.

1) First goal should of been a 2 on 2 but Dougie had a brain fart.

2) The 2nd goal, Graves commits to nothing. Laying down doesn't mean he stopped the pass. Hagel gets to waltz right up to the goalie.

3) On the 3rd goal, Bratt gets ragged all the way down the boards. Then his guy sends a 1 timer to Killorn in the slot, who was wide open.

4) The 4th goal could of been challenged for offside. The Devils let Kuh and Point skate down the middle. It was a freaking deflection.

You guys are mad that a 9mil HOF goalie out played Vtech.

The Devils struggled to get pucks to the net. Lots of missed passed, lots of posts, and obstruction/interference isn’t a penalty this time of year.

I’d add that a letdown factor after the big Carolina win was maybe operating tonight as well as some fatigue creeping in with our 3d game in 4 nights. We also hadn’t played them this year and, while they are a very good club, they’re not in our division so there wasn’t the same sense of urgency to our game as there was on Sunday.

A lot of the kind of mistakes we got away with in Washington and Montreal and against Carolina bit us in the ass tonight because our goalie had a tough outing. But think how Carolina and Washington must have felt about their goaltending in the games where we beat them last week. What goes around comes around.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I thought that they very clearly got deflated in the second period.

Oh they absolutely threw the white flag up in the 3rd. Very little energy. Crowd was out of it by then too outside a few very annoying Lightning fans

 

[Emperoreddy]

The lesson Ruff needs to drill into them after tonight is you can't afford to have let down games come the playoffs.

You have to come out with the same energy the next game no matter how emotional the last game was.

 

[Dialamo]

Tampa Bay knows how to shut it down. Learn from this. We are coming back strong in the next one. Book it!

 

[Emperoreddy]

Win the next one and come the Leafs do us a solid on Friday and we are back in a tie for 1st

 

[Sdevils42]

Humbling loss, interested to see how and if they can adjust.

 

[Emperoreddy]

It didn't really seem like Tampa was doing all that much to me. Felt like it was more us being sloppy, slow, tired, and not as engaged as we needed to be after the 1st period

Their goalie was not seeing the puck well in the first. We put two behind him and he was dead to rights two other times.

 

[billingtons ghost]

I mean I am honestly not mad at all.
Everything changed when Graves's goal got called back, Dougie hit the post and then misplayed the disasterous short hander.

We are a young team playing against a championship team that will rough you up a little and know how to take advantage.

When I saw the clock winding down to 10 secs and I saw our Team floating around and already in the lockerroom, and I saw the speed that Kucherov and point turned on, I knew they were going to score and the game was well over but that point.

Learning experience. Let's see how they respond.

 

[billingtons ghost]

The 1st goal was the only one not on him. The 2nd one was a soft shot that went through his arm, the 3rd goal was a shot short side that Graves played well on the 2-on-1, the 4th was a backhander short side with 1 second left. Make a save.

I think you missed some subtle plays that made a big difference.

On the first goal, dougie failed to take the pass away, and Hegel after driving the past up ice made the pass across.

You missed Hegel's play on the the second goal which was a direct result of the first. He and Kucherov delayed so Graves was out of the play and the pass was wide open and VV had to guard against it. Or it was a replay of the first goal.

Don't give the puck up at the blueline and allow Killorn to walk the slot with all kinds of time. Just garbage by Dougie and Bratt.

We gave up golden chances at the end of each period. He stopped the first breakaway with 10s to go in the first. Yeah it was a backhand... by a guy with maybe the best backhand in the league... Not to mention the backdoor tap in was there if Kucherov wanted to pass and VV had to play that too.

He was better than Vas who left trash rebounds out on front (we scored on one, Boqvist missed the other) and had three posts back him up... And a disallowed goal. Not to mention we didn't even crack 25 shots.

It's not like they won a couple of Cups recently or anything. They played well. We didn't finish chances.

 

[Eggtimer]

The lesson Ruff needs to drill into them after tonight is you can't afford to have let down games come the playoffs.

You have to come out with the same energy the next game no matter how emotional the last game was.

Even as the game is going on they cannot get too low or too high. It looked like they stopped playing their game after the disallowed goal. Can’t do that in the playoffs. Even if they get up a goal or more, can’t relax at all and have to play their game no matter what happens. If a shitty bounce or non-call against , bad goal against happens ,they need to almost be robotic and carry on like nothing happened
It will be interesting to see how they respond next game.

I hope they have time to practice tomorrow. Would be nice to get a full practice in with Meier. Not sure if they can have a practise according to NHLPA rules regarding rest .

 

[theoptimist]

Hamilton-Siegenthaler

 

[MasterofGrond]

We outplayed a good, veteran, and battle-tested team and lost pretty badly anyway. Sucks, but it's a learning experience. I'm happy they played pretty well at the end of the day.

And if a couple pucks bounce just a little different, we're toasting a big win.

I think it's easy to look at the results, or watch the game and be like "man they played badly." But they didn't, they really didn't.

 

[PizzaAndPucks]

Play freakin defense. The first two goals are terrible 2 on 1 defense.

1) First goal should of been a 2 on 2 but Dougie had a brain fart.

2) The 2nd goal, Graves commits to nothing. Laying down doesn't mean he stopped the pass. Hagel gets to waltz right up to the goalie.

3) On the 3rd goal, Bratt gets ragged all the way down the boards. Then his guy sends a 1 timer to Killorn in the slot, who was wide open.

4) The 4th goal could of been challenged for offside. The Devils let Kuh and Point skate down the middle. It was a freaking deflection.

You guys are mad that a 9mil HOF goalie out played Vtech.

The Devils struggled to get pucks to the net. Lots of missed passed, lots of posts, and obstruction/interference isn’t a penalty this time of year.

I missed the 1st period but after watching the highlights , the Devils very well could have been up 2 to 0. That would make it a much different game. The 2nd period we buzzed a bit in the beginning but our offense dried up big time. The 3rd period was pretty bad as Tampa locked it down defensively. Usually we are great at playing from behind and it seems pretty much any team trailing can muster a good effort and get some good chances in the 3rd period even if they don't necessarily come back to tie it. This game is a bit of a shocker after we played so well 2 nights ago against a team higher up in the standings. Vanaceck certainly could of been better but it really came down to the Devils not going up by multiple goals in the 1st by getting robbed by the posts and this team letting Tampa burn them on the counter. Now the narrative in here is that Vitek isn't a real starter or whatever. I can overreact when the team plays bad and loses but some of the posters on here are a but ridiculous.

 

[Camille the Eel]

In the heat of the moment I cursed the goalie out for sure. But when I calmed back down I really couldn’t damn Vanacek. He was on a hot streak and tonight he was fighting it; and after pitching a shutout on Sunday too. Let’s see if he does not get into a more consistent groove shortly. He’s our guy - but with Schmid in the wings - and I suspect we will alternate the two goalies for the next month and possibly continue that in the playoffs unless one of them clearly seizes the number one job. What’s his record this year anyway, that bum ?

 

[HoliksGhost]

That game pissed me off… haha… boyz need to grow some balz when the chips are down (overturned goal, so so goal tending, shortie) otherwise risk getting bullied right out of the 1st round…

 

[Billdo]

Scapegoat'ism.

Zacha was one when he was here.

Once he left, a new one needed to be selected.

Bratt "won" the Scapegoat Lottery.

I guess I find it more interesting than certain guys are like Teflon and can't be talked about.

 

[Clam Jensen]

Big learning experience game. Looking forward to the response mañana!

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

More than one thing can be true...Mogilny sucked when we got him in 2000. Kovalsuck wasn't great in his first 'year' as a Devil. Shit happens, ideally they have the real version of Timo for a lot longer than this stretch run where they probably won't.

With respect to Ilya Kovalchuk, for much of his career he was very much like Jack Hughes; a magician in the offensive end and a non-factor everywhere else.

There was a game for Team Russia where he barely crossed the defensive zone and with the Devils he would occasionally stand in his own zone but not be playing anyone.

I don't know how Jacques Lemaire and then Pete DeBoer corrected that but the year the Devils went to the Finals he competed all over the ice and practically carried that team on his back.

 

[Clam Jensen]

With respect to Ilya Kovalchuk, for much of his career he was very much like Jack Hughes; a magician in the offensive end and a non-factor everywhere else.

There was a game for Team Russia where he barely crossed the defensive zone and with the Devils he would occasionally stand in his own zone but not be playing anyone.

I don't know how Jacques Lemaire and then Pete DeBoer corrected that but the year the Devils went to the Finals he competed all over the ice and practically carried that team on his back.

Jacks defensive metrics are actually good though, even though I guess eye-test wise he doesn’t *look* like Pandolfo out there. Conversely, Kovy had brutal defensive metrics but he looked good doing it.