They will be without 3 of their best players in the playoffs so that can't be an excuse. You can't play sloppy defense and be a passenger in the playoffs either. There are no excuses in the playoffs.
GDT: Everybody Wants to be Up, It's All Uphill from Here: Your New Jersey Devils @ Pittsburgh Penguins, 3 PM, ABC/ESPN+
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I'm fairly certain Markstrom simply needs to shake off the rust from his injury and he will find his groove again.
But today he was not good at all. Mercer was dog shit too
But today he was not good at all. Mercer was dog shit too
I don’t disagree, but there’s an adjustment period and so far they’ve done well without those players and with adding a few guys as well, that’s all I’m saying. 3-1 since the TDL. Didn’t think they gave up too much today also tbh.
Nemec had a great keep on the Timo goal but besides that it was another brutal outing
It was softy of the night caliber on Markstrom.
Weak shot that’s a routine save from well out and he just misses it with his glove. It went off his glove and in.
Too many blind players that can't find the net and too many passengers on this team so that's not going to happen!
I would bet a whole lot of money that Bastian is gone after this year. He’s a UFA and almost definitely won’t be retained. Organizations almost always let these types walk after UFA.
I can’t think of many UFA aged 4th liners we’ve re-signed since Lou was GM. Have we even given out any one year deals to these types of players?
Other than MacDermid getting a 3 year extension. And that was just a Rempe reaction.
get average goaltending and they win that game. I don't think the D coverage was THAT bad.
I agree, but we can call a spade a spade. Markstrom was bad. But defensively, we had our issues and the Penguins pretty much potted all of them. I thought Pesce played the 2 on 1 poorly on the second goal. Dumoulin unfortunately was out of the play on the third goal after crashing into the boards leaving no one able to cover Rakell. Kovacevic completely misplays the puck on goal 4.
I thought we were pretty bad with the puck in general. That includes over passing on our PP opportunities, as well.
That's been the theme all season. Unfortunately Markstrom shits the bed a lot.
At the very least we get a point with average goaltending.
I really think all of the last 4 goals he allowed today were stoppable at best and some were downright awful at worst.
Goals 3 and 4 were leakers (goal 3 was one timed but he was in position for it), goal 5 was not good. I don't care if he looked like he was screened. It's not like there were guys right in his face.
He had given up by goal 7, but the game was already lost anyway.
And it felt like he was gonna undo whatever good we may have done by getting it close, and that's exactly what he did.
Goal 2 wasn't bad, but it looked like a Johan Hedberg move. He was fighting it all game long after that. Even the saves he made looked shaky.
Camille the Eel
Registered User
He was really good in December, just okay in October, pretty good I think in January, but not quite as good as December. I think he was at least fine in November, but nothing really special before December.
He's been 2023 playoffs Vitek bad in these 5 games since returning though.
The goalie numbers during the Johnny Mac coaching stint weren't even this bad, nor was Cory Schneider's March of 2018, which was also a return from injury layoff. And those numbers were pretty bad.
This is possibly the worst 5 game stretch of regular season goaltending we've seen on the Devils in quite some time. Cory Schneider's first 9 games of both 18-19 and 19-20 were really bad. They were like .850% over a 9 game stretch both times. Blackwood had a lot of really disaster masterclasses from February of 2020 through the end of his Devils tenure.
And what's really scary is the he wasn't even bad in game 1 of this 5 game stretch. That was by far the highwater mark since returning. He only allowed 2 goals that game and we got shutout. He's allowed 19 goals in the 4 games since. He's gotta be a sub-.800% since the Dallas game.
He’s really just a crappy hockey player. I would be stunned if he’s brought back. I doubt we will see Lazar back either.
As for Mercer, I’ll continue to bang the drum to get rid of him while he’s still perceived as a real asset around the league. He makes way too many boneheaded mistakes for my liking and way too many plays die on his stick. Soft on the boards….not good at winning puck battles…..It would nor surprise me at all if he is dealt in the offseason as part of a hockey trade.
I shat on Daws as much as I was Markstrom today after allowing that wraparound goal the last time we played in Pittsburgh, but even he can't possibly be this bad.
Luckily we're not in as dire straits as we were in March of 2018 when we had to perma-bench Cory for Keith Kinkaid until we clinched a spot. Probably only in large part due to that 3 game winning streak. That 3 game winning streak that featured 2 wins coming from Allen and the Markstrom win being a 5-3 game where Markstrom at times looked like he was gonna let them hang around. I think they even hit the post at 5-3 a long shot over his glove that would have made it 5-4.
Didn’t see the game today. Obviously Kovacevic was terrible (will give him a pass for the most part since he’s usually solid). Dumoulin looked like ass. How was Nemec? I saw he turned the puck over which led to a first period goal. Almost felt like he was panicking about being hit.
Keefe is in a tough spot, he’s gotta give his starting goalie a chance to get back in game shape… there’s not much runway left before the playoffs
Or he has to realize that his starting goalie played on Thursday and his backup played today. The Devils have a light schedule down the stretch - Markstrom can get plenty of reps in practice, but he hasn't looked good in any of his games so far.
My3Sons
Nobody told me there'd be days like these...
Given that Markstrom is post injury I’m not sure why they feel the need to force feed him starts.
Agree. Given a choice players tend to not want to play for keefe anyway
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He did score a nice goal. Shame it didn’t count. Linesman sucks for missing that call
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