New Jersey Devils Put Up Another Poor Effort

The New Jersey Devils played another poor game, this time against the Wild, and some troubling trends are not going to go away. Overall the team’s effort was lackluster and considering they were bag skated after a poor effort they should feel embarrassed and the coaches should feel worried.

The Good

Tatar’s goal was a nice shot and Hamilton’s pass up the middle was a thing of beauty as was his interception to turn a Wild rush into a Devils breakaway.

The penalty kill shockingly didn’t let in one in four attempts so this is a positive but probably won’t be the normal all of a sudden.

Bastian, McLeod, and Geertsen did not see a lot of ice time but they were all going to the net and screening the goalie on Graves’s goal. Without them, it was an easy save and there were not a lot of positives again tonight but even small plays should be noted.

The Bad

Ryan Graves scored a goal and had his worst game in a Devils jersey. He was beaten early by Kaprizov putting this team behind first yet again and followed it up with an awful giveaway to Pitlick only minutes later to make it 2-0. Things got better for him with a nice shot to put the Devils on the board but he made a third bad play leading to a goal later on by not being on his man and screening Blackwood before Kulikov put it in the net.

Starting with the Hughes, Hischier, Zacha line together again was questionable and while you shouldn’t just judge them on one game it worked so poorly the game before they go split in the third and the team was bag skated. They showed poor chemistry again and shouldn’t be together for a third game when the team has obvious line combinations that worked better.

The powerplay failed to score again and had about one good minute in all three combined powerplays.