GDT: Canadians @ Devils, 7:00 PM

[glenwo2]

He's totally right.

This is one time where I will concur because the Defense was missing the "D" in the -efense.

 

[TF1970]

I gotta be honest, I don't really care if we finish 2nd or 3rd in the Metro...especially given our road record.

of course I do care if we can somehow get 1st and beat out Carolina, but I am not sure thats in the cards.

Yeah I haven’t worried about Carolina in a long time. Don’t see any scenario where they don’t win the metro.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Yup. Bottom line, Montreal scored on their high danger chances. Montambeault stopped ours.

You want to minimize mistakes, but they’ll always happen. That’s hockey. Mistake free games don’t exist. Montreal had 18 shots for crying out loud.

I mean…yes…and no. Just from the eye test it feels like the few chances NJ gives up are just wildly dangerous. Guys wide open with lots of time and space to shoot. Odd man situations created by sloppy puck handling or over aggressiveness in the neutral zone. It’s like with Severson…a lot of the time he’s fine but when he screws it it’s just such a colossal f*** up. That’s how it feels the Devils are collectively. And I don’t feel that way just because they lost today. I see it most games even when they win. They have the ability to generate a lot of scoring chances for themselves that they are converting on and goaltending has been good, those are the big X factors in this season’s success.

I watch the rest of the league a pretty good amount. The quality of the chances that other top teams give up don’t seem to be as bad as the ones we do.

We are likely playing the rangers in the first round. A team that thrives on capitalizing on great chances even if they only get a handful of them in the game. And they have a goalie that can stop an offense dead in its tracks even when the guys in front of him are letting pucks and chances through. Not a good sign that this will be a favorable matchup for the devils.

 

[billingtons ghost]

Then either Vitek is sick or Lindy has Chico shaded glasses

Or maybe the hot takes on this board belong to those who think we got goalied.

We came out with zero intensity, made sloppy plays, gave up awesome chances all night long to the few players who could hurt us. (Good thing Josh Andersen sucks out he would have had a hat trick)

They executed the only gameplan they could against us, and frustrated us, had some puckluck and that was it.

 

[Guttersniped]

The Canadiens were missing Cole Caufield that's like us missing Jack .... plus Marino was not part of the problem. Illness isn't a valid excuse in this game considering we carried the play .... unless it was VTek that was sick and he sure played like it.

Marino made a miscue that lead to the turnover on Suzuki’s goal so he was part of the problem tonight. That led to the discussion about him being sick on the broadcast.

Do you prefer not knowing about any illnesses or injuries so you can judge all off-games as a product of a moral failure or lack of effort/will?

It happens all the time, a bug gets in the locker room and the team plays worse for a bit. That’s life.

If it’s true, it’s not an “excuse”, it’s simply factual information. It doesn’t make the game less of blah gross loss, particularly for the fans in attendance, but there’s nothing wrong with Ruff mentioning it.

 

[None Shall Pass]

Sometimes you lose a game.

We've won a lot more than we've lost lately.

It's okay. Really.

 

[theoptimist]

No, that is a fallacy.

You cannot say you don’t care about standings and then cite our regular season road victories.

 

[Devs3cups]

14-4-3 since January 1st.

 

[billingtons ghost]

I'm not saying we aren't a great team. I'm not saying we aren't going to win the metro or fail to make the playoffs

What I am saying is that it is stupid in games like this to point at the goalie as the culprit bc we have alot of shit we could clean up and we got an example of how we could be much better.

Give the Habs credit. They played as well as they could play and frustrated the crap out of us.

Did any of our forwards have wide open looks and put the puck top shelf? Saw lots of blocks, lots of missed shots, lots of stuff right into Montembault.

This is one time where I will concur because the Defense was missing the "D" in the -efense.

Loved the goal by your guy, btw. And he made a couple of nice defensive plays too.

 

[glenwo2]

Loved the goal by your guy, btw. And he made a couple of nice defensive plays too.

meh. We lost so who gives a s--t?

(loved the goal, too. lol)

 

[Devs3cups]

I'm not saying we aren't a great team. I'm not saying we aren't going to win the metro or fail to make the playoffs

What I am saying is that it is stupid in games like this to point at the goalie as the culprit bc we have alot of shit we could clean up and we got an example of how we could be much better.

Give the Habs credit. They played as well as they could play and frustrated the crap out of us.

Did any of our forwards have wide open looks and put the puck top shelf? Saw lots of blocks, lots of missed shots, lots of stuff right into Montembault.

Montreal had 18 shots on goal. 18. This is the 2nd lowest amount of shots we’ve given up all year.

Montreal didn’t play a good game, they capitalized on 3-4 opportunities (who were also sort of weak goals except the 3rd one) while we couldn’t get 1 goal on 3 breakaways and other good chances.

If we would’ve won 5-2 tonight with 18 SOG while having 40 shots against, this board would be saying we played like shit.

 

[glenwo2]

Thing is that I make it a habit of looking at the final score before deciding to watch the game that I record.

If the Devils won, I'd watch the game in its entirety.

If the Devils lost, I would simply watch the highlights.

And this game had very few highlights on our behalf.

Not a happy camper right now.

Hopefully we get a bounce-back win against LA this Thursday.

 

[Devs3cups]

Did any of our forwards have wide open looks and put the puck top shelf? Saw lots of blocks, lots of missed shots, lots of stuff right into Montembault.

Literally had 3 clear cut breakaways and other good looks.

 

[glenwo2]

Literally had 3 clear cut breakaways and other good looks.

Did I read right that 2 of those breakaways involved Wood and Brendan f'n Smith, though?

If so, no wonder we couldn't score for sh-t.

 

[NJDevs26]

Or maybe the hot takes on this board belong to those who think we got goalied.

We came out with zero intensity, made sloppy plays, gave up awesome chances all night long to the few players who could hurt us. (Good thing Josh Andersen sucks out he would have had a hat trick)

They executed the only gameplan they could against us, and frustrated us, had some puckluck and that was it.

I mean the goals allowed were bad. Not quite as bad as I was expecting from the hot takes, but still bad...a five-hole goal and a couple of unscreened bad angle goals from around the faceoff circle.

 

[Triumph]

They "dominated" the game because of score effects and that they fell behind. Using MoneyPuck's numbers, at the time of the Montreal first goal the Habs had a .37 to .06 xG advantage. At the time of the second Habs second goal, it was 1.1 to .9 xG advantage in favor of Montreal. At the time the Habs made it 3-1, the xG advantage was 1.2 to 1.12 in favor of the Habs.

Basically it was an even game until the Habs took a two goal lead and score effects went into over drive. The Devils are overall this year a better team. That is what happens when a lesser team grabs a multigoal lead and doesn't give it right back. They tend to be conservative and sit back and the better teams shows urgency to get back in it. Had Montreal not gotten that lead or if the Devils had gotten a quick one back, I'm not sure that dominate gap in play would have emerged.

You're not doing a good job of making your case here because you're saying that the xG were even when the Habs went up 2, and then the Devils controlled the rest of the game but didn't score. That's why people are saying the Devils got goalied, because that is how being goalied works. Score effects are real - they don't explain being completely dominated in the rest of the game.

 

[glenwo2]

I mean the goals allowed were bad. Not quite as bad as I was expecting from the hot takes, but bad...a five-hole goal and a couple of unscreened goals from around the faceoff circle.

yeah. I imagine @Bleedred was wondering if Blackwood stole Vitek's jersey and was in net for the Devils tonight or something.

Defense was putrid, though.

 

[NJDevs26]

Did I read right that 2 of those breakaways involved Wood and Brendan f'n Smith, though?

If so, no wonder we couldn't score for sh-t.

Yeah I'd take my chances with the Palat miss in the first period over either of those breakaways lol

 

[jkrdevil]

Montreal had 18 shots on goal. 18. This is the 2nd lowest amount of shots we’ve given up all year.

Montreal didn’t play a good game, they capitalized on 3-4 opportunities (who were also sort of weak goals except the 3rd one) while we couldn’t get 1 goal on 3 breakaways and other good chances.

If we would’ve won 5-2 tonight with 18 SOG while having 40 shots against, this board would be saying we played like shit.

We got let down by are goaltending to be sure, I don’t see anyone saying otherwise. However, a big part of the shot disparity was because they fell behind by multiple goals early in the second. It was an even game for the most part until the Habs scored two quick ones to make it 3-1.

 

[Blender]

Wood got his first power play point of the season I see.

 

[Devs3cups]

Yeah I'd take my chances with the Palat miss in the first period over either of those breakaways lol

Totally forgot the Palat shot in front in the first. I’d argue that that chance and the 3 breakaways were all better chances than the ones the Habs scored on.

 

[glenwo2]

Wood got his first power play point of the season I see.

yippee. -_-

 

[Devs3cups]

We got let down by are goaltending to be sure, I don’t see anyone saying otherwise. However, a big part of the shot disparity was because they fell behind by multiple goals early in the second. It was an even game for the most part until the Habs scored two quick ones to make it 3-1.

Falling by 2 doesn’t routinely result in getting double the shots.

 

[RememberTheName]

Vitek has been a godsend this year. Stinkers happen, and it is what it is. You can't expect a goalie to give a perfect game 100 times out of 100. Would've liked a better performance from him, but you can't expect to win many games in this day and age putting only two goals on the board either. Move on, learn from it, come back completely ready to go for the game on Thursday, something I don't think this team will have any issue doing given what they have shown for the rest of this year.

 

[MauDevils]

Montreal had 18 shots on goal. 18. This is the 2nd lowest amount of shots we’ve given up all year.

Montreal didn’t play a good game, they capitalized on 3-4 opportunities (who were also sort of weak goals except the 3rd one) while we couldn’t get 1 goal on 3 breakaways and other good chances.

If we would’ve won 5-2 tonight with 18 SOG while having 40 shots against, this board would be saying we played like shit.

You're just in denial. All 18 of those shots were 2 on 0 breakaways.

We're lucky we even scored two goals with Montreal's stifling shutdown defense.