Motivation. If nothing else, it's the one thing a Devils' team that got embarrassed and emasculated in Tampa Bay absolutely, positively should have had going for them. Throw in the fact that they were supposedly "playing for" a goaltender who had finally overcome offseason tail reattachment surgery after working it off in relief throughout a playoff series that was as short as the statement he successfully made throughout it, and the well of excuses they have to go to for another uninspired performance becomes bone dry. John Hynes routinely preaches being a "self starter", but players that haven't put together a single win in an NHL building other than their own shouldn't exactly have had to rub two sticks together inside their stall to get a fire going under their ass last night. Of course, there's always ebbs and flows throughout any 82 game schedule, but the Devils starting off their first extensive road trip of a season that's still young relatively to the rest of the league shouldn't have them looking like they've grown tired of putting in the effort necessary to make up for an average level of skill. It's not that the losses are piling up and erasing what was a bullish sprint out of the gates, but rather how and why those losses are piling up. Occasionally you're going to get humbled by some of the more complete rosters in the league, as was the case against the Lightning, but New Jersey got put on their heels like they were walking a plank by an inferior team in Detroit. The Red Wings outworked, out-skated, and...well...out-Devils'd the Devils. Assuming Little Ceasar himself isn't in charge of ice maintenance at the arena that's named after him, they looked like they were trying to manually juice goals out of their sticks while doing so. However, it's not them having "one of those nights" that's most concerning, but rather the lack of urgency in battling through it. Whether they were winning or losses in bunches last season, the Devils were pretty consistent in being a pain in the ass to play against. Unfortunately, while the inclination to go streaking has apparently carried over into them looking nudely vulnerable for stretches, being non-circumstantially competitive has not. Teams that are difficult to play against don't repeatedly give up third period leads. Teams that are difficult to play against don't repeatedly take untimely penalties. Teams that are difficult to play against may get beat, but they don't beat themselves. Teams that are difficult to play against don't look like a shell of themselves on the road. All those things happened last night. Whether it be sitting in the box immediately after giving up a PPG or sitting in the box immediately after scoring a go-ahead PPG in the third, the Devils are finally being scolded for a defeatist lack of discipline. The most careless pass of Will Butcher's career stands out because it led to the unofficial game-winning, shorthanded goal, but it's only the most egregious example of the self-destructive ways in which they've costing themselves points in arenas in which those points are harder to come by.
John Hynes, as per usual, is right. It's up to the players - who are professionals, mind you - to find whatever confidence they might have lost over the last week and a half, and playing the way they fully embraced in earning a playoff spot last year is the most tried and true way to do so. If you look up and down the roster, there are definitely some problem areas (2nd line uselessness, a thrown together 4th line), but a brighter light gets shown on those problem areas when you start deviating from a system that makes everyone look better. Those first four games weren't anymore of an aberration than the last six have been, so it's both disingenuous and premature to say that they don't currently have the horses to place in the playoff race at this point. They just need to get back to running together in lockstep, because the Devils are exponentially better as a team than they are as talents. Thus, when they don't play like the former it becomes harder to see the latter. ------- We're talking in baby steps, because Cory Schneider should be somewhat nurtured in his return to NHL action, but I feel comfortable in saying he made it out of the crib last night. The start was predictably rough as, if not for a fortuitous whistle, the first relatively pedestrian puck he "stopped" probably should have resulted in the first bad goal he let up, and him being two inches off the goal line while slow to the one-timer that breezed right past him was nearly as discouraging. That said, he definitely appeared to find his footing as the game progressed. He didn't look like it was his first appearance of the season for the last 45 minutes or so, and that's about as much as you could have asked for from a guy that gave his team more than enough of a chance to get a win for him while still getting acclimated. They are the easiest things to blame in times of crisis, but - much like the coaching - goaltending has most certainly not been the problem as to late.
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