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Devils’ Weekend Of Disappointment

Is there a Doctor in the house? 

Sunday afternoon, the New Jersey Devils hosted the Ottawa Senators in the second half of a home back-to-back that included a 3-1 loss to the visiting Philadelphia Flyers Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, with a number of their players dealing with a bug – sources have speculated the Norovirus is going around New Jersey’s room – the Devils were unable to weather the storm as they fell to the Senators 2-1 in a game that no doubt had them running to the doctor. All except Tomas Tatar of course, who scored New Jersey’s lone goal against Ottawa. It was his first goal in his last 20 games. 

While the medical experts are likely prescribing rest and fluids, New Jersey is now looking towards Wednesday when it takes on Boston on a night when the Devils will induct Jacques Lemaire into the team’s Ring of Honor. But first, let’s break down the weekend’s events.

To start, New Jersey needs to learn how to score in different ways.

This season, the Devils have typically been a high-octane offense. Their top two lines are among the best in The League. But for all that high-end skill, they lack secondary scoring and versatility. New Jersey’s rush game is strong. Their transition game overwhelms opponents. 

However, when the opposition limits the Devils’ rush chances and forces the Garden Staters to play a more simplified cycle game, New Jersey’s offense dries up. Part of that is due to their tendency to overcomplicate things on the ice. Part of it is their lack of offensive support from the bottom six. And part of it is what Head Coach Sheldon Keefe describes as the forward lines being disconnected from shift to shift. 

No amount of antibiotics and fluids will solve those issues. The Devils’ skaters have to simplify their game and take advantage of whatever opportunities each shift may present. Meanwhile, you can be certain that GM Tom Fitzgerald is scouring the trade market to see which player(s) may be available when The Deadline comes around on March 7th. 

Secondly, while shots on goal are an imperfect statistic to measure a team’s performance, there’s no denying it has some merit. On Saturday, New Jersey was held to three shots on goal in the first period. They looked out of sync and were unable to muster anything against the structure of the Flyers. Then, on Sunday, the Devils put up 17 shots in the first period against the Senators. They looked terrific but still couldn’t find the back of the net. 

Sheldon Keefe called Sunday’s first period, “our most dominant period, statistically, of the season.” Considering how red-hot the Devils were before the Christmas break, that’s saying something. But it also leads to New Jersey’s next problem. The team is unable to maintain its hot starts. 

“I think we had a great start to the game,” Tomas Tatar said after Sunday’s loss. “(After the first) I think we stopped playing. When you’re in a position like this, you just have to simplify things and play very good structurally. It’s gonna come eventually, but we can’t be just doing whatever out there. We have to simplify it a lot.”

“There’s gonna be games when you’re playing well and the puck won’t go in,” Tatar continued. “But you just have to keep doing the same thing and then repeat it. I think that first period was one of our best periods. We had a jump.”

“In the future, we gotta start building off that,” added Jonas Siegenthaler after the loss to Ottawa. “I always feel like, in the last couple games, we kind of dipped in the second period. That’s on us. We gotta make sure we don’t do that and just build off the good stuff.”

Building off good stuff has been a problem for the Devils of late. Not just over the weekend, but going all the way back to Christmas. It all comes down to being patient on the ice.

“We don’t want to be the team that cracks,” Siegenthaler explained. “It’s not easy to score.”

“Guys are trying to make plays,” Keefe explained. “(The) guys recognize we haven’t scored for quite some time right now, going back to Christmas. So it’s starting to pile up a little bit. We try to talk to the guys about having a clear mind and don’t bring any baggage into the game. Mentally, it’s tough. That’s the reality of The League.”

“We had a tough game yesterday that we lay an egg in,” Keefe continued. “You don’t get any time, right? I mean, you go home, you have dinner, you go to bed, you wake up, you come right back and you gotta do it again. It’s tough. It’s tough to do. That’s what we have to manage right now. We’ve played a lot of hockey…There’s no real time to clean yourself up a bit…We’ll take a day off tomorrow, we’ll come back well rested, push through any of this illness stuff that we got going on, which is not even close to an excuse, ’cause it’s not widespread or anything like that. It’s just something that some of our guys have got to push through here. So we’ll take a day off tomorrow, we’ll have a practice day and we gotta push by. If we’re gonna beat any team of consequence, that’s what we’ll do…There’s a lot of hockey left to be played and I believe we’ll be better.”

New Jersey has two days before its next game. Things won’t get any easier from here, so if the Devils are going to “push through” they’ve gotta dig down deep and find something that they haven’t yet. 

Hey, Doc, if you have a roadmap to that “something” New Jersey has to find, now would be a great time to give it to them.

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