GDT: Spend Some Time with the Wee Baby Seamus: Your New Jersey Devils (2-0) vs. Toronto Maple Leafs (0-1), 7 PM, MSG

[Devs3cups]

We should get the answers to that on Saturday. But to me this just felt like a team whose heart wasn’t in it tonight for some odd reason. Effort and execution just wasn’t there.

We'll get the answer to that in about 1-1.5 months. One game doesn't tell anything at all.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Pretty evenly played gm.

Some hiccups, posts hit and missed empty net.

Game could have gone eithee way easily.

Too much gloom and doom. Move on

 

[Killing Joke]

Never accept playing over seas again.

 

[Hisch13r]

Having Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce would be helpful. Jack being close to what he should be would be nice as well.

Jack's the biggest thing. This team is not going to do anything without him being great.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Maybe this was a hangover after the trip.

Maybe this was the boys reading their press clippings after handling Buffalo.

Maybe this was just a struggle against a very good team that defended well.

We should get the answers to that on Saturday. But to me this just felt like a team whose heart wasn’t in it tonight for some odd reason. Effort and execution just wasn’t there.

Some fight would have helped the vibes. It never felt like they had a chance in this one.

 

[Killing Joke]

This team had about as much life as a hospice ward tonight.

 

[Louskoolaid89]

Jack misses Lindy!

 

[guitarguyvic]

Mercer absolutely sucked tonight. If this kid is gonna fail to deliver some secondary scoring AND be junk on defense, well...

It seems like Jack's mojo has been missing ever since that whole penalty box trash talk incident last year. It never looks like he's having fun anymore, the bigger players never miss an opportunity to throw him around/down, and he's constantly trying to force things. And then on top of that you wonder what affect his shoulder history is having on his game both physically and mentally.

Anyway, this game doesn't mean a ton in the grand scheme of things. They played nowhere near a good game (which I'm not surprised about given the circumstances) and somehow it was still somewhat competitive. This team has a ton of potential.

 

[Devilsgrl35]

I didn't hate how we played. It was sloppy but the structure was there. Just didn't execute tonight. It's going to happen in an 82 game schedule. Learn from the mistakes and move on.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Power play was ass

 

[Hisch13r]

Keefe wanted this game bad. Looking at those ice time leaders he rode the stars hard and 3/5ths of them gave him nothing.

 

[HersheyBob27]

Kovacevic might legitimately be the best player through the first 3 games. He's basically the only guy that has really been good in all 3 games.

He was great when he went into our corner after mathews early on and whiffed and never laid a glove on him as he walked out

 

[theoptimist]

Yea Mercer sucks too

 

[Emperoreddy]

Keefe wanted this game bad. Looking at those ice time leaders he rode the stars hard and 3/5ths of them gave him nothing.

Also had 5 PPs that we did nothing with

 

[Hisch13r]

Power play was ass

Outside of whatever Bratt cooks up I've liked PP2 more.

 

[Devs3cups]

Anyway, this game doesn't mean a ton in the grand scheme of things. They played nowhere near a good game and somehow it was still somewhat competitive. This team has a ton of potential.

As for Jack, I think once he pots one, the floodgates will open. He's overthinking right now and it shows.

 

[njdevils1982]

Looks like its beer o clock for me now.

just now?

 

[Bleedred]

Yea Mercer sucks too

That penalty in the 3rd period made me want to kick him in his head, beat him in his balls and jump up on his head.

I'm mostly kidding. I'm not THAT mad at him, it's just a song I was listening to.

But he did piss me off with that.

 

[DerekDevils30]

We'll get the answer to that in about 1-1.5 months. One game doesn't tell anything at all.

That’s true. It’s a very long season. Just a lot of people are on edge after what was a disastrous 23-24 season and I understand calling out a team that didn’t have their work hats on for a home opener. Losses are fine but the way they lost that one doesn’t sit well

 

[Devilsgrl35]

Power play was ass

On the contrary, the PK was great once again.

 

[guitarguyvic]

As for Jack, I think once he pots one, the floodgates will open. He's overthinking right now and it shows.

The thing with Jack though is this goes back to last year. Something doesn't look right out there with him and that's been the case for a while now. It's concerning that he's starting a fresh new season and the vibe is still off.

 

[TrufleShufle]

How is Jeff Dunham still going?

Bunch of dummies follow him around.

 

[Emperoreddy]

On the contrary, the PK was great once again.

Probably the only actual positive.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

Bounce back on Saturday and all is forgiven. Real tough showing in front of an excited crowd

The crowd wasn't that excited. Leafs fans are the most boring opposing fans I've ever encountered

But it was kinda dead from the start. Even now sitting in the parking lot there isn't the same crazy vitriol there usually is. The pregame hype video was trash. The fancy led lights they were talking about were just cheap led puck lights zip tied to the rails lol. It was just super dead everywhere around the arena. Probably the most dead game I've ever been to.

 

[guitarguyvic]

I don't think the PP looked bad. The last couple were rough but I think that was more the Leafs baring down on the PK. The opportunities before that they were getting looks and they even scored on one. I don't think special teams is gonna be an issue this year.