The New Jersey Devils are now 1-10-1 in the last 12 games and have watched as the strong start to the season completely evaporate. Playoffs are no longer a remote option. This is made all the worse with a poor showing of 10-straight home losses, the last win coming January 24th against the Islanders. Not a lot needs to be said about either of these things as it is very obvious that they need to win more games to make any headway.
The Devils came out strong against the Islanders on Saturday with an early goal, but they made a good number of mistakes all night and the Islanders do not need many chances to make the opposition pay. Even with a good effort, a few small things will sink this team. They need to be perfect on Sunday to come out with a win.
The Good
Pavel Zacha continues to be on a solid pace and scored a goal on a clean wrist shot. The Devils built off this and had some good momentum for a long time. Zacha continues to be the lone bright spot at the top end of the lineup.
The third line of Janne Kuokkanen, Travis Zajac, and Yegor Sharangovich Brought a lot of good things in short bursts. For a depth line, it has been nice to see. They might not be noticeable all game, but if they can continue to match opposing lines and put up a goal every so often, it is a small bright spot for the franchise.
After his awful start, Zajac is starting to put up some decent numbers. With the trade deadline approaching, it will be interesting to see what way the team decides to target him.
The Bad
The team as a whole was throwing a lot of pucks up the middle and right in front of the net all night. Mackenzie Blackwood bailed them out at times, but whether this was fatigue from the condensed schedule or bad coaching it needs to change. Players should know to never go up the middle with a pass well before they make it to Junior so it is ridiculous to see numerous times a game from an NHL team.
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The fourth line had a rough night on the defensive end, but they have shown a lot of fight and will bounce back with a big game right away. The problem here is that this team can not afford to have them be off for a shift thanks to the inconsistent scoring and the top players not getting much going for too long a stretch.
In the last 10 games, the top six has been terrible aside from Pavel Zacha and perhaps Jesper Bratt who has managed to put up six points in that span. Anyone who expects to play big minutes needs to be near half a point a game or at the very least bring some huge intangibles to the team such as solid two-way play and physicality. Gusev has been a no-show for the season, Johnsson has 1 assist in his last ten appearances, and Kyle Palmieri, the most consistent man for years now has 1 goal and 1 assist in that span. Teams do not win games without goals and those need to come from the top six who have shown almost nothing for a long stretch of time.
Looking Forward
Jack Hughes has pushed the play a good amount, but it looks like he needs to do it all himself now and the young star has only put up 1 goal and 2 assists in 10 games. That won’t do wonders for his confidence. It is time to stack one line with whoever is playing well and ignore positions.
Zacha-Hughes-Bratt has shown that they are here to win games more and the others have been a lead weight tied around them for enough games it needs to stop. This way perhaps one line can get going while a second line with a combination of Palmieri, Gusev, and Johnsson can try and figure it out or in the very least stop hurting two separate lines to the detriment of the entire team.