ECQF Preview: Your New Jersey Devils vs. Carolina Hurricanes - We're Playoff Bound!

I don’t get why we’re comparing regular season stats from the last 5 games with teams that have been objectively better than us for 6 months. Is that because it’s generally a good idea to go into the playoffs playing well and showing effort? I wonder….

I guess if we want to feel inspired because the Canes have sucked the last few games we can do that, but what does that say about us? We haven’t been playing well either. You may argue that of all playoffs teams, we had the most to prove these last few games.

I think this would have been a different story (and I would have felt better) if we went 7-3 to finish the season. But we didn’t do that.
We had nothing to prove in a truly meaningless string of games.
 
Carolina ended up a whopping 8 points and only +13 goal differential up on us when its all said and done. With some of the talk in here, you'd think they finished 30 points ahead of us.

yes, they were the better team this year, and they should be the favorite, but again, this "CANES ARE UNBEATABLE DEVILS STINK!" stuff needs to stop.
 
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The fact this game is going to be on 4/20 is poetic cinema. Zig-Zag's and edibles for all!
during our last playoff run i got obliterated. 1 blunt for game 1 against the rangers, 2 for game 2, and so on. by the time we reached game 7 i was double fisting blunts like the world was ending. i'll probably do something similar this year, minus posting photographic evidence lol.
 
during our last playoff run i got obliterated. 1 blunt for game 1 against the rangers, 2 for game 2, and so on. by the time we reached game 7 i was double fisting blunts like the world was ending. i'll probably do something similar this year, minus posting photographic evidence lol.

This was one of the best running gags of that series, along with tacos.
 
Carolina ended up a whopping 8 points and only +13 goal differential up on us when its all said and done. With some of the talk in here, you'd think they finished 30 points ahead of us.

yes, they were the better team this year, and they should be the favorite, but again, this "CANES ARE UNBEATABLE DEVILS STINK!" stuff needs to stop.

There are like 1 or maybe 2 posters saying that. The rest are rightfully pointing out that our play since Christmas has been borderline dreadful and there really hasn't been a sign that they can or will turn it around. This isn't a last couple weeks thing. This is a last several months thing. As such, there is very real concern and understandable push back on the idea that this is somehow an even series or that we have a really good chance of actually winning it. Sure there is a chance. But nothing is pointing in the Devils direction except maybe goaltending, and that's a hard maybe. The eye test and the advanced stats are really in Carolina's favor.

On another topic, as much as you never want to lose Jack Hughes, it should make the team more willing to play a much grindier, greasy style game that they otherwise wouldn't for fear of stifling Jack. I don't want to say they are better off without him because they are not. But in a way I think it might help them against Carolina. His absence would become much more noticeable should they get past the Canes IMO.
 
Carolina? Freddie's good when he's healthy, that isn't the issue - last few dead rubber games aside. Hopefully that put him in a slump but I'm fully expecting him to be good against us the way he was two years ago.

If he is that means NJ didn’t run him into the ground. Carolina are not going to fight. Just have a few Devils take the puck all the way to the net. Andersen will break after some incidental contact. Then when Carolina gets all indignant send Dillon out to challenge the Carolina bench. They will turtle.
 
There are like 1 or maybe 2 posters saying that. The rest are rightfully pointing out that our play since Christmas has been borderline dreadful and there really hasn't been a sign that they can or will turn it around. This isn't a last couple weeks thing. This is a last several months thing. As such, there is very real concern and understandable push back on the idea that this is somehow an even series or that we have a really good chance of actually winning it. Sure there is a chance. But nothing is pointing in the Devils direction except maybe goaltending, and that's a hard maybe. The eye test and the advanced stats are really in Carolina's favor.

On another topic, as much as you never want to lose Jack Hughes, it should make the team more willing to play a much grindier, greasy style game that they otherwise wouldn't for fear of stifling Jack. I don't want to say they are better off without him because they are not. But in a way I think it might help them against Carolina. His absence would become much more noticeable should they get past the Canes IMO.

lol its DEFINITELY not just 1 or maybe 2 posters saying that. But okay.

I already acknowledged what you said in the rest of the post. The fact of the matter is Carolina is a good team while the Devils are mid. Carolina is not great and not a world beater.
 
Carolina ended up a whopping 8 points and only +13 goal differential up on us when its all said and done. With some of the talk in here, you'd think they finished 30 points ahead of us.

yes, they were the better team this year, and they should be the favorite, but again, this "CANES ARE UNBEATABLE DEVILS STINK!" stuff needs to stop.
a good majority of those points and goal differential the devils accumulated were with their best forward and best defenseman on the ice.

canes aren’t unbeatable, but the devils certainly will need to get lucky to steal even a game from this series.
 
Enough with this stupid back and forth, taking potshots at each other isn’t going to prove anyone right - besides we’ll see soon enough whether the apologists or the doomers were more right about this team. If we do lose in 4-5 I don’t want to hear a peep from the apologists and excuse makers. If we actually win the series then feel free to be an I told you so, at least unlike some people here you wouldn’t be gloating over a negative opinion being right.

It’d almost be worse to lose in 6-7, then both sides will feel right lol
 
Enough with this stupid back and forth, besides we’ll see soon enough whether the apologists or the doomers were more right about this team. If we do lose in 4-5 I don’t want to hear a peep from the apologists and excuse makers. If we actually win the series then feel free to be an I told you so, at least unlike some people here you wouldn’t be gloating over a negative opinion being right.

It’d almost be worse to lose in 6-7, then both sides will feel right lol
Apologists vs Doomers is amazing and would make for a killer GDT theme if someone was creative enough to run with it.
 
Some people get a bigger dopamine hit from being right than the team winning. To each their own I guess…
Yeah but it isn’t half as obnoxious if you’re at least gloating over believing in the team or player as opposed to the clowns who mostly come by to pat themselves on the back over being right about being a skeptic or negative.
 
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Shouldn’t the doomers already be shut out because the Devils made the playoffs? Missing certainly seemed like a doomer vibe for awhile. :sarcasm:
I mean we were told for months it was hysterical to worry about the playoffs since there was no chance in hell the Devils could miss, 99.9% on the odds sites and all that and it turned out we were one loss to Columbus away from doing just that so I don’t exactly think that’s a big feather in the cap in barely avoiding a nuclear meltdown we were lectured was impossible.
 
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Enough with this stupid back and forth, taking potshots at each other isn’t going to prove anyone right - besides we’ll see soon enough whether the apologists or the doomers were more right about this team. If we do lose in 4-5 I don’t want to hear a peep from the apologists and excuse makers. If we actually win the series then feel free to be an I told you so, at least unlike some people here you wouldn’t be gloating over a negative opinion being right.

It’d almost be worse to lose in 6-7, then both sides will feel right lol

If you censor the stupid back and forth what’s left? Might as well shut it all down at that point.
 
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a good majority of those points and goal differential the devils accumulated were with their best forward and best defenseman on the ice.

canes aren’t unbeatable, but the devils certainly will need to get lucky to steal even a game from this series.
No they won’t. You are massively overstating how likely a sweep would be. Not very difficult to believe there will be a few evenly played games where a goalie or PP goal is the difference.
 
a good majority of those points and goal differential the devils accumulated were with their best forward and best defenseman on the ice.

canes aren’t unbeatable, but the devils certainly will need to get lucky to steal even a game from this series.
That’s a bit much even for me…while I worry the Devils don’t have a real edge in the series other than special teams, well specifically the PP (which is also going against their league best PK), it’s not like they’re THAT much better than us in any area either. Yeah we don’t have Jack but they also shed Necas/Rantanen…they’re just as reliant on depth scoring as we are.

My biggest worry is actually the big three…Nico, Bratt and Timo all have to play a LOT better this time around in the playoffs without Jack around than they did two years ago. If they do, it can be a series…if not it’ll be closer to the washout some of us fear (and others seemingly can’t wait for). Especially if we don’t have the supposed edge in goal with our 35-year old against theirs.
 
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Some people get a bigger dopamine hit from being right than the team winning. To each their own I guess…

In a way I wish that was the case for me. I think I'm pessimistic to try and set the expectations lower so if they lose it doesn't hit as hard. Cause it SUCKS when they lose and that hits way way way harder than being right about anything.
 

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