Kinda not really. They had a whole week off until they played last Saturday and the had another 4 days off after that. They can practice all they want but for a young team with a lot of new faces that's not enough to actually get things working. They need game time and with that there are a lot of things that will get better.
That said
For all that people want to pick on 1 guy here and there and complain, that entire 1st line was mediocre at best with Zibanejad being the only one really doing anything good consistently, but too often you had three guys stringing themselves out all over the ice offering no puck support and trying to sling cross ice passes from board to board through 2-3 Devils players and thinking that would work. Too often guys floating around hoping for a magic loose puck to find its way to them and only 1 player trying to forecheck or fight for a puck.
For as "low skill" as that third line is, they have been more successful in the offensive zone because they're staying tighter and supporting each other much better than any of the other lines. That's a huge deal with this teams offense right now, there is generally no good puck support or really any noticeable gameplan for many of these lines, just guys kind of floating around hoping 1 guy will win a battle and throw the puck to them.
I think I saw Howden do 1 thing with the puck tonight and was just plain bad with it the rest of the night. Kreider wasn't much better. Someone on that line has to take control of the puck and linemates need to support them. Blindly throwing the puck around is bad hockey yet too many players are doing it.
Andersson isn't perfect and I'm not sure what it's going to take to get him moved up the lineup but he was far better with the puck and forechecking than any center not named ZIbanejad (and even then...).
Haley is a waste. McKegg has wheels but has no clue what to do with the puck. The coaches are tying bricks to andersson's feet and hoping he can do something with them.
defensively the team looks confused as hell and players don't know where they should be. Puck support for the D especially on breakouts was pretty bad. A lot of this is young players, a lot of this is new players
Georgiev looked kind of shaky all night. He had some good saves but always seemed to be fighting things off as well.
Hopefully theyll be better tomorrow but this is why a young and rebuilding team is tough to watch sometimes AND why this ridiculous schedule to start the season completely sucks
