Devils’ lines and pairings at today’s practice: Palat-Hischier-Bratt, Haula-Hughes-Tatar, Meier-McLeod-Mercer, Sharangovich/Wood-Lazar/Boqvist-Bastian; Siegenthaler-Hamilton, Graves-Marino, Smith-Severson, Hughes-Bahl
As I thought, there are changes for #NJDevils today at practice…
▫️Palat moves up to play with Nico and Bratt
▫️Jack flanked by Haula and Tatar
▫️McLeod centers the third line
▫️Lots of options on the fourth line
▫️Bahl swaps to fourth D pairing, Siegs back up pic.twitter.com/UhACqcXjgK— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) April 21, 2023
by VasiliiZaytsev
45 Comments
Tell the NHL we died in a marching accident
Out of all these random moves, Ruff can’t even make the 1 obvious one everyone knows we need. I like Lazar in there, but just put him with Nate and McLeod. Also think it’s time for Luke
o/u 7.5 minutes before Smith takes a penalty in game 3?
I’ll offer an odds boost to making it a parlay with Wood penalty before 30:00.
I hope lineups aren’t the only changes, that’s not what they are lacking
Smith in and McLeod centering Meier and Mercer. We’re trying to lose
We can rest easy knowing that smith and wood will still be in the lineup😇
Nothing like completely shuffling the lines around in the playoffs and just crossing our fingers and hoping it works
At this point im genuinely curious what Ruff sees in Wood that keeps him in the lineup. Single handily flips momentum to the Rangers every time hes on the ice. This has been a full season issue.
The blender is stuck on its highest speed
What, and I cannot stress this enough, in the actual fuck is this?
I see what’s going on. Lindy’s going for the vaunted Kreider three-peat. Wood’s gonna take another shit penalty in the o-zone tomorrow and Kreider’ll score a series clinching power play deflection.
Fade me.
Fire Ruff into the sun
Thanks for coming out Lindy! Enjoy retirement
Sorry but Meier anywhere but next to a playmaking center in the top 6…especially at this point…is simply absurd.
Continuing to play Brendan Smith is maybe the most inexplicable coaching decision I’ve ever witnessed. The man is a walking minor penalty.
Boqvist, Siegs, and Luke all need to play
This is where Fitzy needs to intervene, Lindy trollin
Knowing Lindy, these lines will change completely by puck drop tomorrow anyway.
I appreciate that there is something to hate about every forward line
I had no hope and now I have even less hope somehow
I have defended ruff for a long time now…. But what the fuck? Is he trying to get fired? I don’t think you could have made worse decisions with the lineup, or the way they’ve been playing, or leaving Kreider all alone in front of the net on the power play. The first game I will attribute to jitters, but damn, try coaching my man! Try adjusting anything. It’s like he’s just showing up, punching in, and collecting a paycheck.
Oh now I’m reminded why I hate Ruff, how come our teams never realize that keeping lines together during the playoffs is something that usually happens to teams that play well?
He’s completely lost his mind.
I have never seen a playoff series where one coach outcoaches the other to this extent. Like, ever.
Id much rather win but if nothing else, hopefully this shines a light and forces management to move on. Hes a bottom 10 coach in the league and has been for quite some time.
I joked about a 3M Line but here we are. Let me fix this:
Tatar-Hischier-Mercer
Meier-Hughes-Bratt
Palat-Haula-Boqvist
Sharangovich-McLeod-Bastian
Siegenthaler-Hamilton
Graves-Marino
Bahl-Severson
Make sense to drop Bahl, the best D man over the first two games, to the 4th. Sure.
No confidence in this Coaching staff right now.
Not even worth watching tom, just gonna get embarrassed again
How do you look at the end of the season and dominating chemistry of Tatar-Nico-Dawson and break that line up?
How do you break up Bratt and Hughes who have an insane connection?
I thought we realized Meier needed his own line to produce but to put him with…McLeod?
None of this makes any sense whatsoever.
This is sabotage. Plain and simple.
Lindy Ruff had 82 games to figure out the lines and pairings that work for this team. It’s Game 3 of the first round and it looks like names are being drawn out of a hat.
Palat does not deserve to be on the top line. Haula-Hughes-Tatar played less than 90 minutes together at 5v5 this season and have no chemistry. McLeod is not good enough to be a 3C. Wood and Smith should be nowhere near the lineup without multiple injuries to guys ahead of them on the depth chart.
I believe we have three valid options up front:
1) Go with the top six that worked for us all year until Meier showed up and play Tatar-Hischier-Mercer and Haula-Hughes-Bratt. This drops Meier down to the third line, but those top two lines dominated opposition all season. We need to get that dominance back. Palat-Boqvist-Meier is not a line with any existing chemistry but would be the logical combination given those top two lines. It would also have Meier back at RW where he normally plays.
2) Put Meier on the top line and play your best players together. That means the top line is either Meier-Hischier-Mercer or Tatar-Hischier-Meier, both of which I am okay with. The second line should remain Haula-Hughes-Bratt because, again, it worked very well all year. In this scenario the third line is either Palat-Boqvist-Tatar or Palat-Mercer-Boqvist.
3) Similar to #2 but puts Meier with Hughes. Tatar-Hischier-Mercer, Meier-Hughes-Bratt, Palat-Haula-Boqvist/Sharangovich.
On defense, all I really care about is getting Smith the fuck out of there. I am on the fence about whether to bring in Luke. Siegenthaler-Hamilton, Graves-Marino, and Bahl-Severson should be more than capable of defeating the Rangers. They were excellent all year.
And more than anything else, if Ruff has been drilling these guys to get away from their system of fast, skilled hockey in order to play a rough, physical style for the postseason, that needs to stop immediately. It looks like he has told them all to start throwing big hits and playing the body instead of doing what worked for us for 82 games. You don’t build a team to play with skill and speed and then tell them to switch to a heavy physical game overnight. That is moronic.
I really hope this team shows up tomorrow night no matter who plays. Sadly, my only hope at this point is “just don’t get swept.”
Does Lindy know that we don’t have a first round pick this season?
Having war flashbacks to slump month
Sit Bahl and watch me riot.
Meier-Hischier-Tatar
Mercer-Hughes-Bratt
Palat-Haula-Boqvist
Sharangovich-Mcleod-Anyone but Miles Wood
Defense, Smith is out and someone gets glued to Kreider on the PK
He might’ve done this to mess with the Rangers prep work. I’ll be surprised NOT to see Luke playing tomorrow, very surprised considering a huge flaw was our inability to get through the neutral zone and maintain pressure.
This may be a hot take, but I don’t hate McLeod centering the 3rd and feel like he’s rightfully deserved that spot.
I will memorize this lines and use this whenever I want to last more than 20 seconds
How does Ruff have 834 wins?
Didn’t know it was possible to make lines worse than the last two games, but here we are
[me rn after reading this thread and twitter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiNdUXhGeX4)
This is exactly how the Devils played when there were the Fire Lindy chants. While the players deserve all the credit for turning it around, they no longer have the luxury of different opponents and playing styles. I see why so many teams passed on Ruff. He is too old school playing Wood and Smith with “intangibles”. Both led the Devils in penalty mins and didn’t even play a full 82. I mean, does Ruff even have a strategy? Because his post-game comments show nothing.
I thought all season that this team was winning on talent, that any coach could have gotten this to where they ended up, and that Ruff was not at all maximizing our talent or development
The lines don’t matter. Lindy will change them 10 minutes into the game when we’re down 2 because Wood and Smith took penalties and Kreider netted 2.
Oh good it looks like they are gonna field the shittiest defense they can.
Meier not in the top 6 and Smith still being in, over Bahl no less, is absolutely fucking baffling.
With that said, I’m guessing Shango is in over Wood, but Wood still has to practice with the team, so at least one thing looks right.
Otherwise though… good lord. We’ll see what the actual game lines are but this doesn’t look good.
Seeing these lines I long for the days of being back in the draft lottery…
We are basically playing an elimination games against the Rangers in peak playoff form, and we are still throwing shit against a wall in hopes that something sticks.