The title says it all, fellow New Jersey Devils fans. This team just lost to the San Jose Sharks. A team that had not scored two or more goals on the road or won a game in the white jerseys this season just walked into our barn put in 6 goals and never trailed on the night.
This defense is awful and it is only going to get worse with Dougie Hamilton out long term. They needed someone who could actually play defense and absolutely blew it by letting Nikita Zadorov go to what is for Calgary a division rival who only offered up a third-rounder in two years and a fifth next year. Either the Devils did not even call to ask or made an insanely pitiful offer for them to go within the division.
John Marino looked mediocre on the night again, and Jonas Siegenthaler is looking like an AHL player for some reason. The game was only two minutes old when he chose to puck watch when Michael McLeod was already on that man, and Simon Nemec had another tied up on the rush, letting what must be the 50th easy cross-ice empty net goal go in this season. His job is to cover mistakes for a guy in his first game, to be the defensive guy for whoever he is with regardless if it’s Hamilton or a rookie, and they seem to be the ones needing to bail him out right now. He deserves to sit in the press box, but lucky for him, that is not an option right now.
This team also has virtually no transition game and makes the worst pinches at least times a game. Where this came from, we have no idea since the Devils killed other teams this way last year. All of a sudden it is costing them a ton of points, and the defense looks like they are playing at an outdoor rink shinny game for fun at times not caring if the other guys score. Did losing Ryan Graves and Damon Severson do that much to the defense that guys who were here before unlearned to defend, or did the loss of Andrew Brunette impact this team in a big way?
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Simon Nemec made his NHL debut, and this kid is a real gamer on the offensive side but is definitely going to be a bit of a project on the back end. While he was not the worst defender on the ice by a long stretch, he did look somewhat defensively unaware. His offensive IQ looks like Luke Hughes, but that really is not what the Devils need right now, even with Hamilton out. That being said, he tried to shoot every time he was on the ice and looked ready to load up for a big slap shot on a moment’s notice, which should serve him well in the future. It is also worth noting that he logged the most ice time of all Devils defensemen and the second was Hughes, so the coaching staff might have noticed the veteran players’ constant mistakes.
Goaltending once again, much like the defense, will just lose the team games. The Devils have a great set of forwards but expecting them to score 4+ every single game is impossible. While some of the goals like always are just poor defensive plays just stop the puck a slightly below average amount of times is that too much to ask? The Sharks had 18 shots on net, 17 on Schmid, and put up six goals despite having a whopping 42 in 24 games this season which is beyond embarrassing production. If they can’t keep a team like that from scoring, the Devils need to be prepared to get blown out next week in Vancouver and Edmonton because it will happen if the goaltenders don’t show up, regardless of the team’s performance.