Post-Game Talk: We need a New Goaltender(and Coach); Devils lose 4-1 (Poll)

[billingtons ghost]

That goalie wasn't particularly good, our offense was inept. That guy is giving up well over 3 goals a game and has 6 wins and 14 losses in 21 starts. If you prefer to lose 2-1 instead of 4-1...ok I guess? But the goaltending topic, to me, largely looks like a distraction topic to avoid talking about how inept our skaters actually are...

In the D zone we constantly stand and watch the puck...its been going on for years ..Our forwards suck in the D zone...not a single one of them is even decent....

.Arizona only had 17 shots but by my count there were at least 4 from near or in-between the hash marks completely uncontested.. Crouse and Larsson's goals were exactly that...puck zipping around the ice, our team watching, an eventually a quality shot down low between the circles. It's a joke to watch that happen game after game, year after year and talk about goaltending as the sole problem.

This team isn't good...and no amount of goaltending is going to change that.

I think folks are tired of hearing me defend Blackwood, but yeah. ^This. Blackwood ain't the answer, but he isn't the main problem either.

Hate 4 goals on 17 shots? Me too - must mean that the shot quality is pretty high and it was. Any talk of any of these being bad goals is ridiculous. If you want to harp on the second one, well, ok, he gave up a rebound when the shot was deflected by Erickson standing all by his lonesome in front, and maybe he could get over for a better reaction save after the puck pinballs up in the air.

The fact is that this team pretty much sucks outside of Hughes, Nico and Bratt (and Mercer) and I have some questions of that being enough of a core to be a great team. Personnel, coaching, it's all really a mess.

Keller has 14 goals and two of the other guys who scored for the Coyotes last night would each lead our team in goals today. Let that sink in. And the Coyotes have traded away much of their talent.

Keller 14 g Bratt 10g
Crouse 10 g Hughes 9g
Boyd 10g Johnsson 9g

Tough to win when 4/5 of the team are passengers.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Scoring a PP goal, being perfect on the PK, and outshooting your opponents by double should be enough to beat the Coyotes.

Mack faced 5 High Danger Chances and allowed 4 goals. That is unacceptable. Their goalie allowed 0 goals on 11 HD Chances (and we hit 2 posts). He is just simply not making saves.

 

[guitarguyvic]

I think folks are tired of hearing me defend Blackwood, but yeah. ^This. Blackwood ain't the answer, but he isn't the main problem either.

Hate 4 goals on 17 shots? Me too - must mean that the shot quality is pretty high and it was. Any talk of any of these being bad goals is ridiculous. If you want to harp on the second one, well, ok, he gave up a rebound when the shot was deflected by Erickson standing all by his lonesome in front, and maybe he could get over for a better reaction save after the puck pinballs up in the air.

The fact is that this team pretty much sucks outside of Hughes, Nico and Bratt (and Mercer) and I have some questions of that being enough of a core to be a great team. Personnel, coaching, it's all really a mess.

Keller has 14 goals and two of the other guys who scored for the Coyotes last night would each lead our team in goals today. Let that sink in. And the Coyotes have traded away much of their talent.

Keller 14 g Bratt 10g
Crouse 10 g Hughes 9g
Boyd 10g Johnsson 9g

Tough to win when 4/5 of the team are passengers. And it ain't on Lou and Conte anymore.

I mean the bolded is kind of a ridiculous statement. By that logic there are no bad goalies in the league. Blackwood’s stats are abysmal. Even if you want to discount that, he fails the eye test on a regular basis. Coughing up rebounds constantly, never attempting to poke check or cover up the puck, deep in the net, slow laterally, etc. I also question his commitment to his game and his team mates.

This is not a good team but the goalie is part of the problem. Not sure why anyone has to insist it’s one or the other.

 

[NJDfan86]

I think folks are tired of hearing me defend Blackwood, but yeah. ^This. Blackwood ain't the answer, but he isn't the main problem either.

Hate 4 goals on 17 shots? Me too - must mean that the shot quality is pretty high and it was. Any talk of any of these being bad goals is ridiculous. If you want to harp on the second one, well, ok, he gave up a rebound when the shot was deflected by Erickson standing all by his lonesome in front, and maybe he could get over for a better reaction save after the puck pinballs up in the air.

The fact is that this team pretty much sucks outside of Hughes, Nico and Bratt (and Mercer) and I have some questions of that being enough of a core to be a great team. Personnel, coaching, it's all really a mess.

Keller has 14 goals and two of the other guys who scored for the Coyotes last night would each lead our team in goals today. Let that sink in. And the Coyotes have traded away much of their talent.

Keller 14 g Bratt 10g
Crouse 10 g Hughes 9g
Boyd 10g Johnsson 9g

Tough to win when 4/5 of the team are passengers.

The Devils have scored 21 more goals than the Coyotes in the same number of games, but the Devils are the ones with the passengers? Jack Hughes has played 16 less game than Crouse so not sure why you chose that comparison.

 

[njdevil26]

I just feel so down on this team right now. Outside of Hughes, Nico, and Bratt... who's playing well?

I'm sorry I'm completely done with Zacha. We all get on him then he has like 2 good weeks and completely disappears again. It's the same year after year. 4 goals in the last 25 games. 0 in 10 games.

Johnsson was a great story in the beginning of the season but has 3 goals in 25 games. 0 in 17.

This team just doesn't feel like telling us how long Hamilton will be out which is just peachy.

I'd like to get down on Blackwood and he has absolutely played terribly but at the same time, we know he has a heel problem that still exists, he has had COVID a few times and that HAS to take something out of you (this has nothing to with his vaccination status... simply don't care) and he plays pretty much every night because of the status and inexperience of the rest of the goalies in this org and Bernier's injury... so how much can we really pin this on him?

PK had a good stretch earlier in the season but has been "meh" for a while. Graves is good but is noticeably less impactful without Hamilton, Ty Smith is having an awful second year. Our best d-man is Siegenthaler which is great for him but terrible for us once you think about it.



I'm just really down right now.... and I don't see how we don't get destroyed by Carolina Saturday. The Kings were supposed to be crap but are in second place. Then we have Dallas, Tampa, Carolina, Toronto, and Toronto.... then you may think we get a break with Ottawa... who beat us last time. How could we have any confidence to beat the Habs after what happened last night... then after that is St Louis, Pitt, Tampa, Pitt...

I am fully prescribed to the season being over at this point. My buddy was asking me last night how Ruff can survive what just happened...
Who even cares at this point? Okay Nas will replace him for the rest of the season. Then what? We already tried Nas as coach. Do we wait til Dave Tippett gets fired in Edmonton? Hire an old retread then it's same old crap?


I would like to say "they need to make some trades" but how is that going to happen at this point? No one is trading. I think everyone that has actually asked for a trade is still on their original team. Tarasenko, DeBrusk... are there others? Only guy who has moved is Eichel and look how long that took.

Anyway... I don't know. I'm sad. Thanks for stopping by for another episode of "Andrew's on the Ledge"

 

[JimEIV]

I mean the bolded is kind of a ridiculous statement. By that logic there are no bad goalies in the league. Blackwood’s stats are abysmal. Even if you want to discount that, he fails the eye test on a regular basis. Coughing up rebounds constantly, never attempting to poke check or cover up the puck, deep in the net, slow laterally, etc. I also question his commitment to his game and his team mates.

This is not a good team but the goalie is part of the problem. Not sure why anyone has to insist it’s one or the other.

Because the discussion is almost NEVER on how bad the forwards are...The other night in a 3-2 loss to the Islanders Nico and Jack both stood watched goals scored in the middle of the ice - Go back and look at those 3 goals - 2 of them were inept defense from centers watching the play. There wasn't a single mention of it...Not a peep. Oh dam goaltending failed us again...BS.

My view is goalies are the symptom of the disease.

 

[billingtons ghost]

I mean the bolded is kind of a ridiculous statement. By that logic there are no bad goalies in the league. Blackwood’s stats are abysmal. Even if you want to discount that, he fails the eye test on a regular basis. Coughing up rebounds constantly, never attempting to poke check or cover up the puck, deep in the net, slow laterally, etc. I also question his commitment to his game and his team mates.

This is not a good team but the goalie is part of the problem. Not sure why anyone has to insist it’s one or the other.

So you think those goals were stoppable? Which one? The rebound he coughed up after it was deflected by Loui two feet in front of the net, how do you not cough up that rebound exactly?

I'm not insisting it is one or the other - I said 'he isn't the answer' but he's not the main problem. The problem is you have Bratt and Hughes and Nico and literally that is it. Take Hughes away from Sharangovich, and the latter is useless. Take Bratt away from Mango, and the latter is useless. The only guy outside of those four who has generated anything at all is Mercer.

 

[billingtons ghost]

The Devils have scored 21 more goals than the Coyotes in the same number of games, but the Devils are the ones with the passengers? Jack Hughes has played 16 less game than Crouse so not sure why you chose that comparison.

Hughes is a ppg player, so obviously he isn't the problem - but him staying in the lineup is a problem and will be going forward as well. You can't score if you don't play.

 

[Unknown Caller]

Because the discussion is almost NEVER on how bad the forwards are...The other night in a 3-2 loss to the Islanders Nico and Jack both stood watched goals scored in the middle of the ice - Go back and look at those 3 goals - 2 of them were inept defense from centers watching the play. There wasn't a single mention of it...Not a peep. Oh dam goaltending failed us again...BS.

My view is goalies are the symptom of the disease.

The Devils do give up way too many high danger chances, so I certainly won't argue that point. It needs to be fixed and it is one of the contributing factors to their lack of results.

With that said, the goaltending is horrible and has been horrible for years. I don't care how many excuses people want to make about Blackwood's covid situation or workload, he just is not a good goaltender. From pretty much any metric you look at, we have bottom 3 goaltending in the league and we've had goaltending that bad for multiple seasons. It's such an obvious and apparent weakness that everyone wants to blame other factors. Until they fix the goaltending they're going to be perpetually terrible and that's just the way it is.

 

[Blender]

Scoring a PP goal, being perfect on the PK, and outshooting your opponents by double should be enough to beat the Coyotes.

Mack faced 5 High Danger Chances and allowed 4 goals. That is unacceptable. Their goalie allowed 0 goals on 11 HD Chances (and we hit 2 posts). He is just simply not making saves.

Yup. If we had scored 3 goals and lost 4-3, would the conversation really be different? Their goalie made big saves, ours didn't. We can't expect that the team will score 4 or 5 goals per game because our goalie can't make any saves.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Because the discussion is almost NEVER on how bad the forwards are...The other night in a 3-2 loss to the Islanders Nico and Jack both stood watched goals scored in the middle of the ice - Go back and look at those 3 goals - 2 of them were inept defense from centers watching the play. There wasn't a single mention of it...Not a peep. Oh dam goaltending failed us again...BS.

My view is goalies are the symptom of the disease.

Defense can be taught, and teaching structure and fundamentals for young player like we have is absolutely essential. I don’t see a lot of evidence of that happening. It’s another failure at the organizational level, in my eyes. Very reminiscent of the kind of waywardness we’ve seen in Edmonton and Buffalo for years.

This team has a boatload of problems. You can pick and choose one or several on any given night. Last night really exposed how bad Blackwood is, that’s all that I’m saying.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

So you think those goals were stoppable? Which one? The rebound he coughed up after it was deflected by Loui two feet in front of the net, how do you not cough up that rebound exactly?

I'm not insisting it is one or the other - I said 'he isn't the answer' but he's not the main problem. The problem is you have Bratt and Hughes and Nico and literally that is it. Take Hughes away from Sharangovich, and the latter is useless. Take Bratt away from Mango, and the latter is useless. The only guy outside of those four who has generated anything at all is Mercer.

He is the main problem. There are obviously other issues with the team, but goaltending is like 10 times more important than any other issue right now.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Scoring a PP goal, being perfect on the PK, and outshooting your opponents by double should be enough to beat the Coyotes.

Mack faced 5 High Danger Chances and allowed 4 goals. That is unacceptable. Their goalie allowed 0 goals on 11 HD Chances (and we hit 2 posts). He is just simply not making saves.

Again. Look at the goals and tell me how the saves are to be made. I'm getting that no one likes the numbers, and no one likes the results - but look at the actual plays and tell me who would have stopped those. Blackwood isn't helping us for sure - but four goals got scored last night by the other team and I'm finding it hard to point the finger at the goalie on any of them.

And I don't f****** care about HD chances. It only takes one to score a goal if it is high enough danger. The Mayo screen shot doesn't count as HD because it is too far out. Still unstoppable.

 

[JimEIV]

The Devils do give up way too many high danger chances, so I certainly won't argue that point. It needs to be fixed and it is one of the contributing factors to their lack of results.

With that said, the goaltending is horrible and has been horrible for years. I don't care how many excuses people want to make about Blackwood's covid situation or workload, he just is not a good goaltender. From pretty much any metric you look at, we have bottom 3 goaltending in the league and we've had goaltending that bad for multiple seasons. It's such an obvious and apparent weakness that everyone wants to blame other factors. Until they fix the goaltending they're going to be perpetually terrible and that's just the way it is.

You can't fix goaltending when the play in front of them is atrocious...It is a ying and yang thing...Can't have one without the other. It's impossible.

 

[billingtons ghost]

He is the main problem. There are obviously other issues with the team, but goaltending is like 10 times more important than any other issue right now.

Tell me how the saves on those goals would be made last night from a technical goaltending perspective. Explain in detail please.

 

[My3Sons]

Because the discussion is almost NEVER on how bad the forwards are...The other night in a 3-2 loss to the Islanders Nico and Jack both stood watched goals scored in the middle of the ice - Go back and look at those 3 goals - 2 of them were inept defense from centers watching the play. There wasn't a single mention of it...Not a peep. Oh dam goaltending failed us again...BS.

My view is goalies are the symptom of the disease.

Who is saying the forwards and defenders are playing particularly well as groups? There are plenty of comments about floaters and passengers at both offense and defense in addition to MBW. I'm willing to give MBW a pass based on the premise that his heel is bothering him. It's not his fault the team won't try a plan B. There just aren't enough guys with pushback right now. Too much soft play, which looks different for different players.

 

[Billdo]

Bratt getting a vote (not gonna call out the poster here) is even more strange.

Can't imagine why unless the poster though "goat" was GOAT instead of just "goat".

I didn't even notice that.

 

[NJDfan86]

Hughes is a ppg player, so obviously he isn't the problem - but him staying in the lineup is a problem and will be going forward as well. You can't score if you don't play.

Sure, I agree with that - but that wasn't your point. You said that the Coyotes top 3 goal scorers would lead our team in goals, which is factual but completely lacks any context. The only one to write home about was Keller, and even he has 3 more games played than Bratt - Crouse has played more games than any of our forwards besides Mercer and McLeod. After those 3 on the Coyotes, the next highest player has 7 - while we have 1 more with 9 and 3 more with 8.

The Devils are 20th in the league in scoring - not great but if you are historically bad on the PP for most of the year thats probably the best you can expect. They are 26th in Goal against, and they have the #11 PK in the NHL.

 

[Unknown Caller]

Hughes is a ppg player, so obviously he isn't the problem - but him staying in the lineup is a problem and will be going forward as well. You can't score if you don't play.

He played all 56 games last year in the middle of a pandemic and only missed time so far this year from a broken bone/dislocated shoulder. What a ridiculous argument.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Again. Look at the goals and tell me how the saves are to be made. I'm getting that no one likes the numbers, and no one likes the results - but look at the actual plays and tell me who would have stopped those. Blackwood isn't helping us for sure - but four goals got scored last night by the other team and I'm finding it hard to point the finger at the goalie on any of them.

Who would have stopped those? LOL the goalie playing for the other team last night stopped similar chances.

Again this logic is ridiculous…it would mean there are no bad goalies. That every time a goalie gets a shutout it means there were no “unstoppable” shots taken. Goalies would never make a save on breakaways. Etc.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Sure, I agree with that - but that wasn't your point. You said that the Coyotes top 3 goal scorers would lead our team in goals, which is factual but completely lacks any context. The only one to write home about was Keller, and even he has 3 more games played than Bratt. After those 3 on the Coyotes, the next highest player has 7 - while we have 1 more with 9 and 3 more with 8.

The Devils are 20th in the league in scoring - not great but if you are historically bad on the PP for most of the year thats probably the best you can expect. They are 26th in Goal against, and they have the #11 PK in the NHL.

What you say is true - but it's also all rationalization - "if you're historically bad on the PP" . Yeah, bad is f'ing bad.

 

[Devs3cups]

This team was built to be an offensive team...

Here is Jack's last 5 games:

Rk	Date	Tm	Opp	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	EV	PP	SH	GW	EV	PP	SH	S	S%	SHFT	TOI	HIT	BLK	FOW	FOL	FO%
1	2022-01-19	NJD		ARI	L	0	1	1	-1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	3	0.0	24	21:04	0	0	5	11	31.3
2	2022-01-13	NJD	@	NYI	L	0	0	0	-1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0.0	25	20:36	0	1	1	4	20.0
3	2022-01-08	NJD	@	CBJ	L	0	0	0	-1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0.0	27	25:43	0	0	3	9	25.0
4	2022-01-06	NJD		CBJ	W	1	2	3	2	0	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	3	33.3	24	19:00	0	1	6	6	50.0
5	2022-01-04	NJD	@	BOS	L	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	4	0.0	28	20:08	1	1	8	12	40.

[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Do you not see what is happening here? If your best players aren't your best players night in and night out you aren't going to win....Period. That is it. No advance stats or rorschach heat map is going change this fact.

Somehow Blackwood had a .969 SV% against Columbus a few days ago when Jack's managed 3 points playing 19 minutes....Anecdotal? I think not. This all boils down to the lowest common denominator...Score more than your opponent. You can win by scoring a lot or not giving up a lot...The best teams do both, we do neither.

Most of these discussions are nothing more than clouding the fact that we suck at Offense and Defense.

Jack Hughes is literally playing at a point per game pace…

 

[JimEIV]

Who is saying the forwards and defenders are playing particularly well as groups? There are plenty of comments about floaters and passengers at both offense and defense in addition to MBW. I'm willing to give MBW a pass based on the premise that his heel is bothering him. It's not his fault the team won't try a plan B. There just aren't enough guys with pushback right now. Too much soft play, which looks different for different players.

It's not even about giving anyone a "pass"...From my perspective, it just seems like a fake focus to distract from the larger issues...And that is the lack of progress and refinement from guys that are supposed to be leading the team...

We keep saying "they're young it'll come"....But most of the play from key players still looks like unrefined and amateurish. These guys have been in the league 3, 4 and 5 years now and we still see the same lack of polish, lack of high level play, just an overall lack poise and refinement as when they were rookies.

 

[NJDevs26]

The offense is an embarrassment, there’s no doubt about that. But this isn’t 2014 when our ‘starting’ goalie was rocking a 1.97 GAA with just 16 wins out of 43 games to show for it, there’s plenty of blame to go around for everyone - goalie, defense and forwards with this team.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Who would have stopped those? LOL the goalie playing for the other team last night stopped similar chances.

Again this logic is ridiculous…it would mean there are no bad goalies. That every time a goalie gets a shutout it means there were no “unstoppable” shots taken. Goalies would never make a save on breakaways. Etc.

So go ahead - tell me how a goalie stops the shots that Blackwood saw last night. All of them.