The New Jersey Devils are embarrassed again on home ice to their arch-rivals in the New York Rangers. They need to fix something about this team fast.
The day began with some New Jersey Devils news from NHL insider Pierre LeBrun. He tweeted out that the Devils are officially hearing offers on their superstar free agent to be, Taylor Hall. This isn’t exactly where we thought they’d be going into the season but here we are. The Devils are going to likely move him as the writing is starting to be clearly written on the wall.
Hall actually looked like a man possessed early in this game against the New York Rangers but nothing ever came of it. Instead, the game solidified that it might actually be in the best interest of the team to move on from him. He has been a great player for the Devils but his time appears to be up. This pathetic loss to the Rangers just proved how this season has gone for them.
After coming off a huge win on Thanksgiving against the Montreal Canadiens, it appeared that maybe something of a winning streak could be started by the Devils but that will likely not be the case. Any time it seems like they have some momentum they put out some dud of an effort in an upcoming game. That was the case in this game against the Rangers.
The story of the game is the penalty kill of the New York Rangers. They scored two short-handed goals against the Devils power-play units. The Rangers kill is not good at all, in fact, it came into this game as the 26th ranked penalty kill in the league and they are known for giving up lots of high danger chances in bunches while shorthanded. In this game, they looked like the best unit in the league. They were better and worked harder in all areas compared to the man advantage of the Devils.
If the Devils are going to win some hockey games here in December, they need to be more consistent. They can’t have games where they play horribly in front of their goalie and give him no goal support and leave him out to dry. MacKenzie Blackwood was fine in the game, but his team can’t execute. You can’t say that the team was terrible as far as effort, because they definitely had their skating legs for stretches of the game and they obviously worked hard enough to earn the power plays they were given.
They just couldn’t buy a goal or execute anything they tried. It was an ugly game all around that led to the Rangers winning 4-0. The Devils go into December in the last place in the Metropolitan Division. They will be back in action on Monday when the visit Jack Eichel and the Buffalo Sabres.