Yeah that sucked, but after the first 10 minutes they played fine. The Rangers completely turtled from the first intermission on. Igor was good but we didn't get a huge amount of quality on him, most of it was one and done from the outside.
But - think a huge part of that was going down so early. Which I blame on the special teams. 0 shots on 4 PPs is atrocious and unacceptable.
The Rangers clearly did their homework and know that we like to look back to the points and go for royal road passes. They had their sticks ready. If they're going to deny us those passes, then the onus is on the players to be more aggressive driving to the net and generating their own chances (especially the big four - Hughes, Bratt, Nico, Timo).
I', not sure if lineup changes are necessary at the moment, but shortening the bench in the 2nd and 3rd shows that Lindy isn't confident in the 4th line to do anything positive to help turn the score around. I don't know what subbing Wood/Bastian out for Lazar would do to change that, but it is a bit concerning that we can't be a 4 line team.
That being said, I'm not going to panic. In 2012 we were down in all three of our Eastern series and we came back to win all of them. The nerves are out of your system. You got punched in the mouth and now you know you're not made of glass. Get back on track tomorrow night and steal a game at the garden to get home ice back.
The positive from last night and the only thing us Devils fans have any control over. Tommorow is a big test for this group. That gotta come out pissed off and more determined and f***ing excute!
