GDT: Devils @ Buffalo - 1:00 PM - MSG

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Oh for sure Nico is a total beast, he carries the team in his back. Markstrom has been great as well but the team is capable of being much much better.

Our goaltending has been OK but losing one guy, albeit an amazing player, shouldn’t tank the entire team.
Losing a 1C, 3C and your #1 goalie while replacing them with barely any NHL level guys can absolutely make the team weaker and decrease their quality of play. Since most of those important injuries, the team has won 3 of their last 5. They just need to stay afloat until the break.
 
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just a reminder that we had a healthy nico and markstrom and playable haula for most of january and they still sucked really really bad.

yeah they played great in december, but this awful stretch is just as long as any good stretch the team had. i’m not convinced getting healthy will be the boost this team needs, they might just be mediocre and end up having to fight for a wild card spot. there’s 30 games left, if the last month trends hold for all teams they’ll be out of the playoffs by march
Does the “bad stretch” just extend infinitely, ignoring any other stretches of play they’re currently in? They won 3 of 4 before today, including a 5-1 rout of Boston and 5-0 thrashing of Philly.

If Luke puts one off the bar and in in OT against Toronto or we win a shootout against Florida, would this have been a “good stretch”?
 
spotting them a 3-0 lead will do that to ya
Would love to have gotten a couple or 3 more saves from Allen in the first. That crappy rebound that cost him the first goal. Maybe the shorty breakaway, the second one confusion city. You are not winning many games (hardly any) coming back from 3 zip.

Yeah Timo blows the opening break away. Can’t lift the puck in the 2d. But the difference between this game and Philly is Allen’s play in the first period of the 2 games.

And face it, we came here after 3 full days off and complacent after blowing out Philly. While they were trying not to get swept by us after the Czech season openers.

And then we get that shit first period.

Pretty much everyone says we are a lock for the playoffs. Guess our guys feel that way too. There looked maybe to be a big motivation gap between the 2 clubs in the opening 2 periods today. Although I don’t know exactly what a “motivation gap” looks like exactly.

Maybe if Allen just saves a couple more early this whole thing is different.
 
…"No issues with our effort here. Guys worked hard, even in the first period. It was an effort-related thing," head coach Sheldon Keefe said. "We just don’t play with enough intelligence or purpose defensively. If you don’t have that, it’s really hard to win consistently in the league”…
 
Does the “bad stretch” just extend infinitely, ignoring any other stretches of play they’re currently in? They won 3 of 4 before today, including a 5-1 rout of Boston and 5-0 thrashing of Philly.

If Luke puts one off the bar and in in OT against Toronto or we win a shootout against Florida, would this have been a “good stretch”?
they can win games and still play poorly. they gave up up multi goal leads in montreal and could have easily lost it in overtime. they beat philly convincingly after getting embarrassed by them twice in a week. boston’s bad but at least then they looked like the december team.

you can say they won 3 of their last 4 i can say they won 3 of their last 8. their play today more closely resembles the 4 game losing streak so i dont take much solace in the trend you cited indicating they figured anything out.

sorry i just dont think they’re a good team right now. i think they can figure things out and be the team from december, but i dont think its guaranteed and im not assuming they will. i’ll be happy and cheering with everyone else if they start playing good hockey consistently but until then im not going to take much comfort when they’re squandering points to bad teams as they have been
 
…"No issues with our effort here. Guys worked hard, even in the first period. It was an effort-related thing," head coach Sheldon Keefe said. "We just don’t play with enough intelligence or purpose defensively. If you don’t have that, it’s really hard to win consistently in the league”
This right here. With or without Nico you won’t win most nights with this Pejorative Sluration.
 
they can win games and still play poorly. they gave up up multi goal leads in montreal and could have easily lost it in overtime. they beat philly convincingly after getting embarrassed by them twice in a week. boston’s bad but at least then they looked like the december team.

you can say they won 3 of their last 4 i can say they won 3 of their last 8. their play today more closely resembles the 4 game losing streak so i dont take much solace in the trend you cited indicating they figured anything out.

sorry i just dont think they’re a good team right now. i think they can figure things out and be the team from december, but i dont think its guaranteed and im not assuming they will. i’ll be happy and cheering with everyone else if they start playing good hockey consistently but until then im not going to take much comfort when they’re squandering points to bad teams as they have been
Teams chasing us are playing desperate and focused hockey because they have to. A bad ten game stretch by Columbus right now and their playoff hopes are over. Meanwhile we have had the cushion and have been explicitly talking here about getting a couple more wins (500 hockey) to get to the break and nurse our injuries.

It doesn’t take much for games like todays to go either way. The difference in attitude may explain why we are playing mediocre hockey and clubs chasing us are hot.

Poor goaltending and (Keefe said) defensive focus cost us this game in the first period.

Against Philly we looked a hell of a lot more desperate than we did today. And we were. If our cushion evaporates will we find that game again consistently? I hope it doesn’t come to that.
 
just a reminder that we had a healthy nico and markstrom and playable haula for most of january and they still sucked really really bad.

yeah they played great in december, but this awful stretch is just as long as any good stretch the team had. i’m not convinced getting healthy will be the boost this team needs, they might just be mediocre and end up having to fight for a wild card spot. there’s 30 games left, if the last month trends hold for all teams they’ll be out of the playoffs by march
You act like it’s baseball and they play everyday. A month isn’t a long time. Let’s go over the month

-first week and half was the west coast trip where they dropped points they shouldn’t have (genuinely something to complain about) and they lost Haula during this time.
-next week and half was returning from the trip with virtually no rest and a flu bug ripping through the team. They grinded out some points before the Ottawa-Philly weekend when you could tell energy was sapped.
-They finally got a break and got back to back wins but lost Nico and Markstrom compounding everything that went before it.

You are talking about 13 games where three seperate external factors worked against them. Obviously the team needs to fight through it, but I’m going to say the November/December Devils is closer to reality than January. They will probably be fine once they get through this, but they need to limit the damage of course.
 
If you look at last years team at the 54 game mark, this team is only 4 points better than last years garbage injury riddled team that had no goaltending.

That is horrible and not much of an improvement.

Tom's done a terrible job.
 
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five powerplays and no goals. and that's a grand total of.....zero percent

IMG_1027.jpeg
 
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Does the “bad stretch” just extend infinitely, ignoring any other stretches of play they’re currently in? They won 3 of 4 before today, including a 5-1 rout of Boston and 5-0 thrashing of Philly.

If Luke puts one off the bar and in in OT against Toronto or we win a shootout against Florida, would this have been a “good stretch”?

Didn't and didn't. Moot point.
 

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