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Who are these Devils?

Howie Written by Howie, Friday January 09 2009
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I have been a Devils fan ever since I started following hockey as a child. I have been to hundreds of games, and have seen hundreds more on TV

            I have been a Devils fan ever since I started following hockey as a child. I have been to hundreds of games, and have seen hundreds more on TV. Even after all of these hundreds of games I found that the biggest test of my fanhood came last night in a regular season game against the lowly Thrashers. Although it may seem like I’m making too big of a deal over a meaningless regular season game, last night was the single toughest game I have ever had to watch.

 

It wasn’t because the Devils lost to a team that they should’ve beaten,

and it wasn’t because they not only lost but got shutout.

It was because of the complete lack of effort, organization,

and strategy that the Devils readily displayed last night.

 

            The first period of the game passed quietly enough as neither team mounted much of an attack.  The pace of the game remained noticeably slow as neither team seemed willing to attack.

 

Then three minutes into the second period, the Thrashers scored their first goal on a puck that Scott Clemmensen couldn’t control, which squirted behind him and across the line. It was after this goal that everything unraveled for the Devils. They couldn’t catch passes, they couldn’t make passes, they didn’t win a single race to the puck, and they couldn’t figure out how to organize a break out into the Thrashers zone if their lives had depended on it!!!

 

            As the Devils began to collapse the Thrashers got more aggressive and came up with two more goals before the period ended. The first one came on a beautiful one timer by the only true talent on the team, Ilya Kovalchuk. The second goal came towards the end of the period on a complete defensive breakdown by the Devils.

 

            It was at this point in the game that everything fell apart. From then on the Devils could do no right. The whole team seemed to give up!  They began playing on even strength as though they were penalty killing. They were passive on defense, looked completely lost on offense, and they didn’t seem like they cared at all. Players were skating away from the puck, going to the bench in the middle of crucial offensive plays, and they just generally seemed like they were waiting for the game to end.

 

            At no other time was this more evident than at the beginning of the 3rd period. As the puck dropped to start the period, there were only four Devils players sitting on the bench!  It was almost a minute into the period, when the rest of the team seemed to remember that the game wasn’t over and made their way back to the bench.

 

Aside from some punches thrown between Mike Rupp and Eric Boulton, the Devils didn’t show any signs of life for the rest of the game. Even when the Thrashers gave them long power plays and 5-on-3 chances, the Devils couldn’t capitalize or even get themselves set up in the offensive zone.

 

Even more depressing than this is the fact that they turned in this woeful performance on College Night. The arena was filled with young college students from over 115 different schools, as a result of another good promotion that the new management has created to try to build the fan base. Many of these students were at their first Devils game and I can’t imagine that many of them will be returning to the ‘Rock’ anytime soon after having to witness this travesty of a game.

 

            I hope I’m just overreacting because otherwise last nights game could be a preview of worse things to come. Coach Brent Sutter better have a few more tricks up his sleeve, if he’s going to get this team to bounce back without goaltending stalwart Martin Brodeur in net.  His presence has always seems to give the team a sense of confidence that they can win, even when they don’t play well.

 

As we head into the middle of the season, the Devils need to return to the way they were playing at the end of November and the beginning of December.  Does anyone still remember how they won 10 out of 11 games with Scott Clemmensen between the pipes??

 

Only time will tell.

 


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