There was almost no point to even show up in St. Louis for the New Jersey Devils. They basically didn’t anyway. It was probably the ugliest game of the season for them as a whole.
They let a guy who hasn’t scored in 20-plus games get a goal, and allowed Patrick Maroon to join Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise as former Devils to score against them in the span of a week.
Are injuries to blame for an atrocious effort like this? The answer could go both ways. They certainly miss the reigning MVP of the NHL in Taylor Hall, who is missing his 21st straight game. They are also missing Sami Vatanen, who is their best defenseman and quite frankly by far.
That is no excuse to have games like this one against the Blues. In a one goal loss then maybe you can look at those guys’ absence and point to it as a reason why they didn’t win. But getting destroyed on the road and run out of a building is absolutely unacceptable.
This one is on all the guys in the room for letting the St. Louis Blues embarrass them like that. They are also missing Blake Coleman and Miles Wood due to injury, but like I said before, that is absolutely no excuse to get run out of a building.
With the trade deadline coming up, it is possible that this nightmare of a season gets worse as far as on ice results. There will be talent subtracted from the lineup which could result in more losses of this magnitude.
Is there a prize for this terrible season that we are all suffering through? Well, maybe. The draft lottery has worked for the Devils in the past and we can only hope this year will be no different.
The Devils are back in action on Thursday night in Chicago to take on the Blackhawks at the United Center. The Blackhawks just had a 7 game win streak come to an end, so the Devils may be dealing with an angry bunch on the other side following a tough loss themselves. The Devils need to match that.