GDT: Penguins @ Devils, 2:00 PM, NHL Network

[Bleedred]

Vegas is really ripe for a beating on Tuesday. 3 games in 4 nights, in 3 different time zones, with a cross country flight on day 3.

We should be able to handle them on Tuesday. I’m pretty sure they have some injuries right now and Mark Stone is definitely out.

But we have certainly lost to worse teams from the West (Nashville, St. Louis) at home this year.

 

[Dylan9z9]

Wow can you challenge the non call of a too many men penalty? I mean could Ruff really have had Toronto look at it, if the call on the ice hadn’t been made?

I certainly didn’t understand that was reviewable. Someone will know the rule book better than me. I always thought reviews were limited to very precise situations like off sides, goalie interference, kicked puck, goal scored with a stick above the cross bar. Is (again) a non call of too many men reviewable?

But yeah as to it not even being a close call - Yes 100%. They called it because it was an obvious

Wow can you challenge the non call of a too many men penalty? I mean could Ruff really have had Toronto look at it, if the call on the ice hadn’t been made?

I certainly didn’t understand that was reviewable. Someone will know the rule book better than me. I always thought reviews were limited to very precise situations like off sides, goalie interference, kicked puck, goal scored with a stick above the cross bar. Is (again) a non call of too many men reviewable?

But yeah as to it not even being a close call - Yes 100%. They called it because it was an obvious infraction.

You are right you can't challenge a too many men on the ice non call the player has to be 5 feet or less from his bench for a good change this guy was more than 10ft .... was an easy call they had no choice but to make the call

 

[Bleedred]

Playoffs potentially look set right now in the East, though seeding could easily change.

Maybe someone currently outside bumps Washington out and takes their spot. Every team in the conference has at least one game in hand on them and some teams like us and Pittsburgh have THREE games in hand on them.

 

[MadDevil]

And November was outplaying everybody and winning.

Hockey is a weird game.

 

[Bleedred]

I didn’t even think that was a bad goal on Vanecek.

It was one timed and there’s a definite moving screen cutting across as the puck is shot and he gets out of the way before Vanecek could react. And it didn’t leak through him or anything. That Pens guy (Pettersson) cuts right through as the shot is coming.

 

[MtoD]

You are right you can't challenge a too many men on the ice non call the player has to be 5 feet or less from his bench for a good change this guy was more than 10ft .... was an easy call they had no choice but to make the call

Closer to 30 feet.

its 25 feet from blue line to red line..

 

[Dylan9z9]

Closer to 30 feet.

its 25 feet from blue line to red line..

Even an easier call then

 

[Devils090]

Closer to 30 feet.

its 25 feet from blue line to red line..

That’s one of the worst line changes I’ve ever seen lol

 

[Emperoreddy]

 

[MtoD]

That’s one of the worst line changes I’ve ever seen lol

Honestly probably goes uncalled if the guy changing didn't immediately join the play and make it into a prime scoring chance in OT.

I had a perfect angle of it in-person. The trailing ref had the call the entire way and was drifting towards center ice watching the guy who jumped on. Pretty sure he was basically watching if he ended up impacting the play so once the pass was made, the ref blew the play dead (ref was literally standing on the center dot when he did so). Penguins barely even were upset.. was a very obvious call.

 

[Bleedred]

Vanecek is 7-1-0 in 9 appearances (1 in relief) and a .930% since being pulled in Carolina on December 20th. That CJ tweet heavily implies that we’ve been getting just average goaltending. Vitek’s GSAx is even better than his GSAA last I saw.

Blackwood is 2-1-2 in 6 games (1 relief appearance) and a 908% since returning from injury. Now that’s average.

Vitek is still considerably better.

 

[MadDevil]

Vanecek is 7-1-0 in 9 appearances (1 in relief) and a .930% since being pulled in Carolina on December 20th. That CJ tweet heavily implies that we’ve been getting just average goaltending. Vitek’s GSAx is even better than his GSAA last I saw.

Blackwood is 2-1-2 in 6 games (1 relief appearance) and a 908% since returning from injury. Now that’s average.

Vitek is still considerably better.

If we can get .908 out of Blackwood the rest of the season I'd be thrilled.

Of course, having said that, I've now guaranteed he'll give up like 5 in his next start.

 

[Bcap88]

Gonna be pretty amazing when a 21 year old Hughes breaks Elias single season point record and gionta goal record in one year

There was some talk about our schedule being pretty tough at the end of the season. Even one of the players (I think Palat?) mentioned he looked at the schedule after the break and there’s a lot of playoff teams.

But I know we still have Columbus twice, the Habs two more times, Ottawa one more time. Chicago and Arizona on the road. I think we have the Flyers one more time. St. Louis on the road. We probably have the Islanders a couple more times. Buffalo too.

I haven’t really checked the schedule, but we should even have some of those teams post-deadline, where they’ll be worse and we may potentially be even better.

I know we do play Tampa all three times this year in about 7 nights. That’ll be tough.

Mid March is pretty brutal stretch
Carolina, Tampa, Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Minnesota

 

[PizzaAndPucks]

Yeah it's been a but of an issue but it is what it is. We have stolen some points in our last 3 games (Sharks , Kraken and Penguins) but at the same time we played the Rangers , Hurricanes , Ducks and Kings pretty good. 6-0-1-0 in our last 7 was thr response you wanna see after that bad December stretch. I think Ruff is playing the right guys for the scenario we are in right now. It's a little frustrating to see Bahl & Ohotyuk get flip flopped a bit but Marino should be back soon anyway. Having Marino back should be able to help us out 5 on 5 when it comes to possession time/numbers. Really wanna see how his impact will be once he returns. Severson has done a decent job playing those top 4 minutes too.

 

[glenwo2]

This guy is, imo, the heir apparent to "Pointing Devils fan".

 

[glenwo2]

I didn’t even think that was a bad goal on Vanecek.

It was one timed and there’s a definite moving screen cutting across as the puck is shot and he gets out of the way before Vanecek could react. And it didn’t leak through him or anything. That Pens guy (Pettersson) cuts right through as the shot is coming.

It was one of those perfectly-timed screens at the right place at the right time.

 

[CR76]

Went to this one yesterday (sat in the Lofts)…that second period was absolutely brutal.

I’ll keep taking the points and the wins (and the cushion that they’re buying the Devils) but yeah eventually if they don’t get things straightened out, the losses are going to start coming.

Serious kudos to VV, who’s basically been a .930 save% goalie for most of his season.

And Marino can’t come back soon enough. He’s sorely missed.

 

[MachoDiablo]

He's not wrong, but I also kind of refuse to get too caught up in that right now; as we keep saying, the Devils played a lot of really strong games in December that turned into losses, now they're playing weaker but getting wins, and over the course of 82 games that's just something that'll usually happen.

Plus, this is still the youngest team in the league; most of them now have enough experience to know what it's like to get through an 82 game schedule, but with the team actually being good this year it definitely changes the level of competition you face on a regular basis, as teams are no longer assuming that they can just toss their sticks out on the ice and walk away with a win against them. Wouldn't surprise me if a few of our younger guys are kind of catching up to that level of competition.

Just play strong as possible into the break and rest up. If we get to February and the Devils are still largely playing shitty but just eking out wins I'll get a bit more concerned, but far as I see it right now is just a market correction after an insanely frustrating December.

 

[Call Me Al]

yeah they’re not playing great but banking points is what’s important right now.

they have a 10 day layoff i doubt any momentum either way is going to carry over to the other side of that. just make it through and scratch out points where you can for now

 

[ChicksDigTheTrap]

I pretty much agree with CJJ

 

[Better Call Sal]

I find value in advanced stats, but at the same time, the sole reliance on them to tell the story is always going to drive me a bit nuts.

So often in this sport, especially over an 82 game schedule, you need your goalie to steal you some games. We haven’t been able to say we’ve had that since the 17-18 season on a consistent basis. There will be some games or stretches where you need your goalie to be the best player on the ice and both Vitek and Mac, whether some agree or not, have really stepped up in that respect over the last few games.

If we can take 2 of the next 3 before the break, it’ll be huge for this team.

 

[Blender]

I find value in advanced stats, but at the same time, the sole reliance on them to tell the story is always going to drive me a bit nuts.

So often in this sport, especially over an 82 game schedule, you need your goalie to steal you some games. We haven’t been able to say we’ve had that since the 17-18 season on a consistent basis. There will be some games or stretches where you need your goalie to be the best player on the ice and both Vitek and Mac, whether some agree or not, have really stepped up in that respect over the last few games.

If we can take 2 of the next 3 before the break, it’ll be huge for this team.

Advanced stats over small sample sizes you need to take with a grain of salt, and there may be added context that you need to look at. They tend to become more reliable the more games you have to analyze.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Advanced stats over small sample sizes you need to take with a grain of salt, and there may be added context that you need to look at. They tend to become more reliable the more games you have to analyze.

Absolutely, I agree.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

The Siegenthaler-Hamilton pairing has seen a big dip in their underlying numbers and the bottom 6 has been quite shitty for a while. Marino in should take some pressure off and Wood out will help.

 

[MachoDiablo]

I find value in advanced stats, but at the same time, the sole reliance on them to tell the story is always going to drive me a bit nuts.

So often in this sport, especially over an 82 game schedule, you need your goalie to steal you some games. We haven’t been able to say we’ve had that since the 17-18 season on a consistent basis. There will be some games or stretches where you need your goalie to be the best player on the ice and both Vitek and Mac, whether some agree or not, have really stepped up in that respect over the last few games.

If we can take 2 of the next 3 before the break, it’ll be huge for this team.

I was just kind of thinking about that and the criticisms a lot of us had about the Rangers last season; their run to the playoffs, plus the horseshoe they had up their asses so they mostly faces third string goalies for the first couple of rounds (oh, and Trouba's attempted tributes to Mitsuharu Misawa with those elbows), made it easy to treat them as suspect since it really felt like The Igor Show for most of the year. They're stronger overall this year so far, but last year had a vibe that made it easy to look at them as frauds as it pertained to being a top team in the league.

Makes me curious if some people are getting unnerved a bit about the Devils lately because they're afraid there's been a few too many "Vitek stood on his head at times, then Jack had to carry things" kind of wins, since if you're winning too often that way it carries the threat that you're always one freak injury away from everything falling apart.

But again, given their overall play over the entire season up to now, given all the travel they just had to do, winning games they should probably lose after losing a bunch of games they probably should've won, etc. etc. etc., I don't think it's worth getting concerned about that now. Lindy and the staff should obviously focus on it and try to deal with it during practice and whatnot, but for fans I think it's best to just watch them get to the break, take a breather, then see how things shake out once they're rested.