New Jersey Devils Need Push Back When Play Goes Bad
By Corey Spina
The New Jersey Devils have had several issues throughout the season. At the beginning of the year it was blowing leads, then it became straight up bad goaltending, then their scoring dried up, and their latest issue has been their inability to stop the bleeding when their opposition is on a roll.
Look no further than their game against the New York Islanders where the Devils scored first, but then once the Islanders got momentum on what was a pretty fluky goal by Ryan Strome, they unraveled. It leaked into the second period where the Islanders scored three straight goals, which the while the second one was awful, the entire Devils team deflated and the Islanders took advantage of it.
Finding Middle Ground
The problem is that there’s no middle ground. Either the Devils are too high after a win, or they’re far too low when things aren’t going their way. There has to be a middle ground of where they’re always ready for the next play and have one goal in mind. Sure, they want to win, but some players get too hyped when they score a goal, which can result in them then taking the next few shifts off.
It’s been a common theme throughout the season, and it all stems from confidence. John Hynes needs to find a way to get his players more even keeled so when a team scores on them then they don’t go into a complete collapse. Even in their game tonight against the Ottawa Senators it’s all about not getting frustrated and being too down on themselves if a play or two doesn’t go their way.
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This is one of the first steps of growing into a contending team. It’s what we see teams like the Chicago Blackhawks and Pittsburgh Penguins do in so many situations. It’s not even about being clutch in certain instances, it’s about playing with the same intensity and not letting the score or bad things happening on the ice get into their heads.
The Devils probably have the most young and talented roster they’ve had in a few years, but they let the play on the ice too many times dictate how they play. We’ve seen it also when they’ve had great comebacks, they rise to another level, but as of recently we’ve seen the Devils get far to low way more than them needing to be clutch at crucial times in games.
A Dedicated Momentum Killing Line
Part of the solution could be getting a line specifically to play when there’s a goal scored for or against the Devils. We saw a lot of Stephen Gionta this weekend, which reminded many of us about the chemistry of the CBGB line, which involved Gionta, Ryan Carter, and Steve Beriner.
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It was like magic when former coach Pete DeBoer put them together and many times when a goal was scored he put up them on to either help kill momentum for the other team or keep it for the Devils.
General Manger Ray Shero traded Vern Fiddler and Sergey Kalinin, who’re more blue-collar type of players, but players like Blandisi, Smith-Pelly, maybe Noesen could develop into something. The point is that the Devils need a momentum killing line so when things go bad they can help stop it in it’s tracks.