New Jersey Devils Current Stretch Not The End Of The World
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils are in one of the worst stretches of hockey in years, but as we really look at the schedule this will likely just be a painful stretch. Better days are more than likely ahead.
It’s been truly terrible to watch New Jersey Devils over the past three weeks. The team was sitting in a playoff spot with multiple games at hand before the losses started piling up. After starting the season 4-0, the Devils lost three straight nail biters. The Flyers final score doesn’t look that way, but that’s because they scored two empty netters. Honestly, this team still looked really good until they played Tampa.
Giving up eight goals to a team takes the wind out of any team. Everyone from the players to the coaches to the front office watched that game, and there’s been multiple changes ever since. Things came to a head before the last game against the New York Islanders.
The Devils made the somewhat surprise announcement that former 6th-overall pick Pavel Zacha would be sent down to the minors. Zacha has been a very good penalty killer, which is the sole reason the Devils brought up Kevin Rooney, so that seemed like an odd lineup decision. An even crazier lineup decision was the choice to bring up Kurtis Gabriel.
I hate to remind you, but this was the lineup for the last game:
https://twitter.com/amandacstein/status/1058743708542214144
That fourth line of Brian Boyle, Jean-Sebastien Dea and Kurtis Gabriel is an advanced statistics nightmare. While it is nice to see the debut of Brett Seney, pairing him with Drew Stafford who’s yet to score this season was not wise.
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The bottom six just didn’t have much of a chance to win. That put entirely too much pressure on the top six, and allowed the Islanders to play matchups much easier. They put their best defensive lineup against Taylor Hall at all times. It worked, as he was held without a point for the first time since the opening game.
This seems like something we should worry about, right? The Devils have lost six of their last seven games. They’ve looked downright bad in the last three. However, it’s not the end of the world.
The Devils had a stretch like this last season, albeit more towards the middle of the year. Injuries are taking their toll, and head coach John Hynes uses these opportunities to send a weird message. It usually ends in a loss, but provides a kick in the pants his team needs.
This happened when Hynes decided to sit Miles Wood, Zacha, Stafford and others at different times last season. He even sat three guys in the middle of a game against the New York Rangers. Hynes is all about sending messages, and thinks long term when it comes to these decisions. Do I understand how starting a goon like Gabriel over a prospect like John Quenneville makes sense? No, but hopefully the process makes sense in the end.
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Point being, don’t panic about the Devils season just yet. There are 82 games, and the Devils are just in a bad stretch. They need to at least split this upcoming back to back with the Penguins and Senators to at least get some good mojo back. Once the Devils go on a winning streak, we will forget what happened at the beginning of November.