GDT: Your New Jersey Devils (21-7-2) vs. Florida Panthers (14-13-4), 7:30 PM, MSG

[NJ07102]

This team for some reason never has anyone glued infront of the goalie in the offensive zone or on the powerplay. Haula scored by crashing the net on the cycle but there was literally so many plays over the last few games where there just is not enough of a net front presence 5 on 5. Wood managed to do it on his goal against the Stars but it was lacking big time the last 3 games. Something so damn simple yet is always effective.

Exactly. Of all the shots they had against Philly, Carter Hart had a perfect view on basically all of them. This is one reason why the loss of Bastian hurts so much – even though it's not the only one. These guys have to start going where it hurts but they got too many that are not willing to do so. This is why a Tatar gets benched in the playoffs.

 

[Killing Joke]

So we are 4-4-2 over the last 10. That’s just not good enough. Every team fighting for a playoff spot behind us in the division is currently on a win streak while we are shitting the bed.

 

[Eggtimer]

What makes it worrisome is two games against Boston, which even when we were streaking looked like uphill battles because Boston simply doesn't lose this year.

They got to get that stopper win before they hit those Boston games as looking for a stopper in those games isn't the best strategy.

If we get olay a rested Bruins team with Ullmark still playing the way he has to start this season… I can see shutout against us or very few goals for us.
Boston has been out Kryptonite similar to the Capitals. They style they play completely takes away from our strengths and forces us to play a game that we just are not good at.
Thats why we have been losing. The opposition is setting the pace and style of game played. We need to switch roles , impose our game on them and take advantage of our strengths.
Boston and Washington always seems to clog up the neutral zone , forcing us to dump and chase yet they break nout of their zone way too easy .
It is going take our A game to win and everyine needs to have a solid game. A good game but a handful of guys would wont get us any points. We need every single guy pulling in the rope in order to get out of this funk . The key guys need to elevate their game (Bratt , Nico , Jack ) . They have been “ok-good” but we need at least one of them to have a dominant game where they are easily the best players on the ice. Like they can be.

 

[Eggtimer]

Feels like ever since the Preds game , we have lost all of our O zone creativity , confidence, skill.
Lines 1-4 were globetrotting the shit out of teams .
I have no idea why or how we stopped or changed how we played.
It looks completely different.
Even little subtle plays are missing from our game. Short little 5 foot passes and touches and not there. We used to break out of our zone , through the neutral zone that teams were always backpeddling and on their heels the entire game.
Its like we stopped trying to dictate the play and now the other team plays their own style and impose their style and pace on us.

Just make them watch the replays of the games they played durimg the streak . Make them watch it on a continuous loop for 48 hours straight

 

[MadDevil]

LOL at the Panthers fans that think Nico intentionally took out Barkov.

 

[theoptimist]

I love chaos

 

[theoptimist]

Listen, I totally get that people are disappointed with what we are seeing right now because it may in fact be a sign that this team was not the juggernaut they appeared to be for 20+ games. As a fan of a team coming off of a decade of failure, the high of seeing the team looking like they've leapfrogged into a legit division leader in one offseason is tremendous. It's hard to not just ride the excitement of feeling that we were finally getting the payoff in spades for all our suffering. And now, cracks are showing and it turns out they no, this isn't a 130 point team that's gonna steamroll the rest of the league and avoid losing streaks...

...but it's a pretty big leap from that realization all the way to "this team isn't any better than previous years and not only are they not capable of winning any upcoming games against good teams, they're going to be out of the playoffs by February".

Could they completely crumble that way? Yeah they COULD. When you have a young inexperienced group trying to battle through a tough patch, playing more experienced teams who have now made strategic adjustments and often hold a distinct physicality advantage, with the prospect of management possibly giving Blackwood too much rope going forward, and the always present threat of additional injuries taking key players out of the lineup...yeah anything is plausible.

But to suggest that a five game losing streak comprising of close losses against playoff caliber teams, following 25 games where the team was setting records for wins and dominating opponents, is evidence that a collapse WILL happen? That's just a completely unreasonable, hysterical take.

How much longer? And which failures should we assign to immaturity? The unnecessary icings that Hamilton and Wood seemingly commit every game. Or is the huffin and puffin the team does when they give up a late goal to end the period? I can’t even watch Hamilton play at this point, just lazy, lazy, lazy all over the ice. Need to hold my breath while we’re on the PP because he’s 2 on 1 threat every time.

This team expires on 12/01 every season.

 

[MauDevils]

The team seems to have lost their identity they were building. We don't look fast at all and we're back to playing sloppy defensive hockey with bad special teams.

I would love to see Fitzgerald acquire some kind of Bastian clone. The Pat Maroon/Bastian types have always been great fits for us. Or just a small shakeup one way or another. We're back to a bus full of passengers.

 

[glenwo2]

this will be my only post here and i won't read any message of the pseudo fans, who celebrate devils loses as their personal achivements.

i still strongly believe in this team.

(btw, I also still believe in this team but they are really testing my patience right now)

 

[glenwo2]

View attachment 623440

What a garbage fan base. Place is unbearable.

7 points ahead of the Playoff-cut-off line.

Still time to turn this s--t around (I've stopped being concerned about the Division several games ago).

The first step is finding a way to beat Carolina and get 2 points (just to stop the bleeding).

 

[glenwo2]

BrattPack is really starting to get on my nerves :

 

[NJDevs26]

They might have won regardless if the rest of the team played like they gave a damn the middle 45 minutes, instead they played like they wanted to turn the puck over just like Damon

 

[jkrdevil]

Feels like ever since the Preds game , we have lost all of our O zone creativity , confidence, skill.
Lines 1-4 were globetrotting the shit out of teams .
I have no idea why or how we stopped or changed how we played.
It looks completely different.
Even little subtle plays are missing from our game. Short little 5 foot passes and touches and not there. We used to break out of our zone , through the neutral zone that teams were always backpeddling and on their heels the entire game.
Its like we stopped trying to dictate the play and now the other team plays their own style and impose their style and pace on us.

Just make them watch the replays of the games they played durimg the streak . Make them watch it on a continuous loop for 48 hours straight

They scored 3 goals in the Preds game and each subsequent four games. It has only been the last three games where the offense has dried up, which is a bit of bad shooting luck (And injuries sapping depth).

 

[glenwo2]

nevermind.

 

[MadDevil]

BrattPack is really starting to get on my nerves :

I mean, he's not entirely wrong. I don't think we would have necessarily won with him, but I think it's obvious a Smith/Bahl pairing is worse than a Smith/Severson pairing, so from a "best lineup possible" perspective it doesn't help to sit him. Hopefully he either cleans it up (at least for a while) or they win some games so they can avoid more message sending roster decisions.

 

[NJDevs26]

I mean, he's not entirely wrong. I don't think we would have necessarily won with him, but I think it's obvious a Smith/Bahl pairing is worse than a Smith/Severson pairing, so from a "best lineup possible" perspective it doesn't help to sit him. Hopefully he either cleans it up (at least for a while) or they win some games so they can avoid more message sending roster decisions.

Sure but would it really have been asking too much for the rest of the team to play at their top level after losing four in a row? We don't have an answer to that hypothetical cause it's not like oh they played great but Brendan Smith cost us...seventeen guys more or less played like crap.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

I mean, he's not entirely wrong. I don't think we would have necessarily won with him, but I think it's obvious a Smith/Bahl pairing is worse than a Smith/Severson pairing, so from a "best lineup possible" perspective it doesn't help to sit him. Hopefully he either cleans it up (at least for a while) or they win some games so they can avoid more message sending roster decisions.

It's so obvious that a Bahl Sevs pairing is the best option there... Bahl Wotherspoon might be even better.

Sevs will be back very soon and that's fine. Ruff is sending a message and I don't mind it. But it's annoying that Smith has such a long leash relative to everyone else.

 

[NJDevs26]

It's so obvious that a Bahl Sevs pairing is the best option there... Bahl Wotherspoon might be even better.

Sevs will be back very soon and that's fine. Ruff is sending a message and I don't mind it. But it's annoying that Smith has such a long leash relative to everyone else.

Yeah well if there was any doubt as to why, you saw why last night when Smith was the ONLY guy to exhibit any kind of pushback against the Panthers' whiny physicality...belated as it was, at least it was there.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

Yeah well if there was any doubt as to why, you saw why last night when Smith was the ONLY guy to exhibit any kind of pushback against the Panthers' whiny physicality...belated as it was, at least it was there.

Yeah that's definitely true. He does throw the body. Usually gets penalized and or out of position, but he does it when no one else will.

 

[devilsblood]

How much longer? And which failures should we assign to immaturity? The unnecessary icings that Hamilton and Wood seemingly commit every game. Or is the huffin and puffin the team does when they give up a late goal to end the period? I can’t even watch Hamilton play at this point, just lazy, lazy, lazy all over the ice. Need to hold my breath while we’re on the PP because he’s 2 on 1 threat every time.

This team expires on 12/01 every season.

There is something to Hamilton's game, much like Tatar's, where you can see why teams move on from him.

 

[Camille the Eel]

This felt like they left it all on the ice against Philly, lost, and now they are mentally defeated.

Hangover from the Philly game maybe and maybe a hangover from the holiday season. But I don’t see any present tense effect of being “mentally defeated.”

I think the next game is a clean slate and they can snap out of it as quickly as a few goals go in. More than anything I can’t wait for them to get on the road.

Detroit and then Canada is where their good streak started and right now during the holidays especially I think this club needs to get away together in order to turn this around.

I mean, I thought we were fine to good. Definitely played good enough to at least get a point and even win. It's subjective though, some thing we were garbage, I disagree. You're not gonna dominated every game, but we played well enough and had chances and the underlying numbers support my eye test on this one.

The first period wasn’t easy on the eye anyway. That’s where we got pretty much caved in. But Schmid kept us in it. Going 2 down in the 2d was the turning point.

 

[devilsblood]

Yeah well if there was any doubt as to why, you saw why last night when Smith was the ONLY guy to exhibit any kind of pushback against the Panthers' whiny physicality...belated as it was, at least it was there.

Ya, and it's similar to Geertsen last year. Coaches play these guys because they want them to set a pace in terms of energy and physicality.

It's kind of the anti Hamilton/Tatar(Zacha probably a poster boy) thing I speak to above.

 

[Camille the Eel]

I mean, he's not entirely wrong. I don't think we would have necessarily won with him, but I think it's obvious a Smith/Bahl pairing is worse than a Smith/Severson pairing, so from a "best lineup possible" perspective it doesn't help to sit him. Hopefully he either cleans it up (at least for a while) or they win some games so they can avoid more message sending roster decisions.

Moving Smith to the right side didn’t look at all comfortable during the first period anyway and we definitely also missed Severson’s offense during an offensively challenged game.

I think Ruff shot us in the foot with that benching. Whether the long term effects on everyone else will have some benefits who knows.

 

[devilsblood]

Hangover from the Philly game maybe and maybe a hangover from the holiday season. But I don’t see any present tense effect of being “mentally defeated.”

I think the next game is a clean slate and they can snap out of it as quickly as a few goals go in. More than anything I can’t wait for them to get on the road.

Detroit and then Canada is where their hood streak started and right now during the holidays especially I think this club needs to get away together in order to turn this around.


The first period wasn’t easy on the eye anyway. That’s where we got pretty much caved in. But Schmid kept us in it. Going 2 down in the 2d was the turning point.

I wouldn't call it a "clean slate". That to me suggests every game is independent of the proceeding games, but it's not.

At one point we were feeling great about ourselves, and the confidence was obvious. Then we probably got a little full of ourselves, probably a little leg weary, opposing teams approached us differently, and now the pendulum has swung and we have lost that swagger.

Teams talk about not getting too high, or too low, Nico did not that long ago. Still, having gone on that early run, and having fans greet Bratt on the ice pregame, and Nico getting nat'l interviews, we probably were a little high on ourselves.

Now we need to learn to dig ourselves out of a rut. Fans here have pointed to recent Cup winning teams having gone through similar ruts, and they were able to dig themselves out of it. Is it fair to make that comparison? I think it is to the extent of, if we can dig ourselves out of it and get back to winning hockey, then we compare favorably, if we can't, then we don't. But we do need to prove that we can battle through adversity.

 

[devilsblood]

Moving Smith to the right side didn’t look at all comfortable during the first period anyway and we definitely also missed Severson’s offense during an offensively challenged game.

I think Ruff shot us in the foot with that benching. Whether the long term effects on everyone else will have some benefits who knows.

Ya, is there a short term disability but a long term benefit in that move?