Saturday, December 16, 2006
Postgame: Red Wings 2 - Devils 1, Etc.
No, I didn't disappear. I had my last class on Thursday night, so I missed the Devils 5-3 loss to the Boston Bruins. 2 Man Advantage had a wonderful re-capping of that game that you can read here. I just finished watching the Detroit Red Wings decisively defeat the Devils 2-1. I've linked the official score sheets (from NHL.com of course) from both of those games. Do you notice any similarities? I notice two very disturbing points of comparison.
- The Devils were heavily outshot. Both Boston and Detroit had 16 more shots than New Jersey in each of their wins. Clemmensen did all he could with those 44 shots he did face; and Brodeur played very well in stopping 34 of 36 shots. The Devils offense was existent against Boston to some degree. Against Dominik Hasek and the Red Wings, they had trouble. Especially with a 4 shot third period, with all four shots coming on the power play in the final two minutes of the game.
- The Devils were poorly disciplined. 9 penalties by NJ against Boston led to 7 power plays for Boston (12:15 of power play time). 7 penalties by NJ against Detroit led to 7 power plays (10:10 of power play time) for the Red Wings. The Bruins scored 3 power play goals in their win, including the game winning goal. The Red Wings only scored one (and came close about 4 times in the beginning of the game) power play goal, an equalizer by Pavel Datsyuk.
Other things from today's game I want to note: Paul Martin has played terribly against Detroit. I don't know how well he did against Boston, but his performance today left a lot to be desired. David Hale only got 10 minutes and 39 seconds of ice time and did well when he was out there. He clearly deserves more ice time. Brad Lukowich played surprisingly well, averaging a minute of ice time on all of his shifts. He had to, being part of one of the penalty killing units. Nicklas Lidstrom is freaking awesome.
The Devils are now on a 3 game losing streak with a game against the damned New York Rangers in MSG. If the Devils turn in another lackluster performance on offense, gaping holes in passing lanes and shooting lanes on defense, an undisciplined performance in every sense of the word, and waste yet another strong Martin Brodeur performance, I would hope Lou Lamoriello "addresses" the situation. Bring back Pat Burns to coach, bench Paul Martin, stick Brylin back at center on the top line, have Julien throw a bench on the ice, something, anything. The Devils are talented enough to hang with the top teams, they did only lose to Detroit 2-1. However, they have not gotten results against the top teams so far this season. This must change and change fast as the new year approaches.
Labels: Devils Postgame
# posted by John Fischer @ 3:45 PM 0 comments 
