Take it away, Luke!
[WHAT ARE WE DOING? WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING?](https://twitter.com/piercethekya/status/1732248380066214035)
Any thoughts, Krusty?
[WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhe3vSe-mmw)
What’s on your mind?
[Video Recap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1siMpjVpew)
[ESPN Game Cast](https://www.espn.com/nhl/game/_/gameId/401559705) (also features the Three Stars of the game)
[NHL Game Center](https://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/ana-vs-njd/2023/12/17/2023020476)
[Shift Chart](http://shiftchart.com/game/2023-12-17-ducks-devils)
[2023-24 Regular Season Schedule (December, all times EST)](https://www.nhl.com/devils/schedule/2023-12-01)
by Devil_Dane
29 Comments
They better wish for some new golf clubs for christmas, cause they are gonna need them come spring
This team’s failure to win big games vs shit opponents is a failure by the coaching staff. All teams play back to back games. It’s not an excuse. You would have thought Lindy would be smart enough to say “hmmm playing Akira on a back to back didn’t work the last time, so probably should not do it again.” He did it again.
edit: We played Schmid against the Rangers in a playoff series. We can play Daws in one game vs the Ducks in December. He’s also played 25 games in the NHL.
Our Powerplay has dried up and now we’re being exposed as a mediocre 5 on 5 team. Lindy’s patented move of “just jumble the lines up in the face of adversity” hasn’t worked all year. If this isn’t a systemic issue caused solely by him I don’t know what is. Something’s gotta give because dropping 4 points in brutal games against bottom feeder teams is not what payoff teams do. This team hasn’t played a full game this season.
I get that our schedule is weird with all of the b2b but can we actually win one of them? On top of that, losing to 2 of the worst teams in the league at home over the span of a few weeks and very convincingly is not a good look either. Both SJ and Anaheim were on historically bad runs and both of them kicked the shit out of us on our home ice.
I remember games last year where we’d get a little too cute and take a crappy opponent for granted. But we’d usually clamp down and show some discipline. This year things seem to snowball. We’d either show no fight or if we start to mount a comeback we usually give up that dagger goal that just kills the momentum.
I didn’t like that game one bit
The line blender to start the third doesn’t make sense. They scored a late goal in the second and had all the momentum.
Jack has to not let the cheap shots get under his skin. The whole team feeds off of him and when he starts chirping the refs and forcing bad plays it’s obvious teams are going to keep doing this.
I can be optimistic and say that the team is on a good run despite clearly not playing their best, but that seems too forgiving of their play.
Big fan, always supporting the boys, but you gotta be honest after an egg lien that. They let Gibson’s unreal first get to their head and lost their game. Coaching plays a part in this.
At least it was Rico I guess.
Dropping the 2nd of a B2B… not good, and needs work to understand why it’s happening. I feel the general Devils problem stems from an overfocus on the speed of our attacking transition system at the expense of a more responsible D. Which costs goals, getting us behind the game and exacerbating the problem as we hunt for a tying goal, etc.
We’ve still had a good last 10, and hopefully we will get our frustrations out on the Flyers, next.
Was gonna watch a recording of this but accidentally saw a post with the score. Glad I can just pretend it never happened and save 2 hours
The team I paid to watch in person last night is not serious about being a playoff team this season. Time and time again we play a stretch that positions us to get into a playoff position comfortably and then not show up against what should be an easy win against a bottom feeder. San Jose. Anaheim. Columbus earlier in the season. It’s unacceptable that we don’t have six points from those games and that’s what separates them from a pretty comfortable spot. They played a solid 20 to start the game and then coasted the way out after getting scored on early in the second. Also we’re now 1-6-1 on the second half of back to backs. That’s not going to cut it when we have the most back to backs out of any other team in the league. We’re young, we should be able to compete in those games. This team keeps giving me hope that they’ll end up in a playoff spot but anytime we get the opportunity to take it we blow it, and instead end up having to dig ourselves out of a hole again.
Terrible loss, nothing positive to take away. Timo is awful. Nemec misses a lot of defensive assignments. Total lack of grit.
If this was a beauty pageant we’d be in great shape. There’s no way the judges could deny our hotness, we’re the sexiest team out there.
Unfortunately this is not a beauty pageant, there are no judges to reward us for simply looking good. We’re dismissive of teams like the Flyers and Islanders and Capitals. Don’t take them seriously. We look so much better than them.
Well, it’s not about looks. It’s about results. And this team is not built to grind out the results you need over an 82-game schedule. We’ll have the moments where we look amazing and everybody gets seduced by our talent. But then you look at the standings and we’re still behind teams we’re convinced we’re so much better than.
I was at that game last night and honestly that was one of the worst breakdowns after an overall solid first period I’ve ever seen. They looked slow, lazy, and soft. They dominated with offensive zone time so hard in period 1 I thought it was a clear win, but nope. Timo just doesn’t look like himself, not sure what’s going on there. They lacked a lot of hard defensive effort, while Anaheim had that and NJ couldn’t do anything on offense, either. That goal they scored right after the penalty (I think it was the second period? Might’ve been goal 2) was so bad it felt like they weren’t even present or prepared. Not getting a lot of shots on the backup goalie is not great. Tough, but I’m done spending money on tickets to the second of back to back games…was at the sharks game too. Just like the Knicks they never win the b2b lol
I said early in the second period that the game was feeling like a loss and got downvoted to oblivion. But sometimes you just know
I know the role is declining in the NHL but does [this guy](https://youtu.be/MMNWEljExdc?t=39) look like someone who doesn’t want to play with an enforcer? Kudos to Bahl for stepping up but feels like we’re going to need more sandpaper.
Losses like this happen during an 82 game season … everything feels magnified because this year has been a grind. We’ll be fine. Still 7-3-0 in last 10. Beat the shit out of philly tomorrow
What sucks about watching this team this year, is how difficult they’re making it to not get all doom and gloom. When you look at things objectively, they’re playing decent hockey based on record over the last 10. But then you watch as a fan, and notice the losses are just absolutely putrid. It’d be one thing if they were gritty, fought till the end losses, even against the basement dwellers. But instead, we’ll string together some quality wins, and then get manhandled by the ducks/sharks of the league. Really rough on the eyes, man.
I blame this loss solely on the $8 PBJ and sandwiches that are being sold. Karma for the stupidity of the Prudential center and trying to gouge people for a dumb marketing stunt
Fire Lindy.
It’s just so frustrating to see other underachieving teams make coaching changes and improve while we simply don’t
I hate playing down to bad teams. This is a coaching problem. Why is it that we can go toe to toe with Boston but then horrible teams beat us?
It’s strange to me that we dominated the 1st period but came out with what appeared to be a different game strategy in the 2nd. Then in the 3rd we juggled the lines and came out with a newer strategy. Ruff does not know how to maintain consistent play over the course of a game and it shows. And playing Schmid back to back again is so stupid it blows my mind. Just put Daws in if anything
we need a goalie and a coach.
I just want Ruff gone. Sure, you can make excuses about BTB games, but good teams win those. You can’t make excuses for losing to the sharks, jackets, and ducks within a months time when all 3 games were in jersey.
People can make excuses about the goalies asking “which goals should X goalie stopped in X game?” My argument is it doesn’t matter because they didn’t make those saves and the other goalies always make big saves amd steal games/keep other teams in. I can easily ask “what goal should the opposing goalie have let in?” But those goals didn’t go in because that goalie made the save. VV and schmid aren’t doing that.
The team needs structure. I believe in the 2nd period devils let the same exact play happen. The play in question is when all the devils were on one side of the boards and the puck kicked out to the slot for an easy mini breakaway. This happens every game and it’s still not fixed. There’s absolutely no reason at even strength or the PK to have all your players on 1 side of the ice and leave the slot unattended. None. That’s on Ruff to fix and 29 games in its still a glaring issue.
The constant line blending is getting annoying. Timo 100% needs to get his shit together and earn that big contract he signed, but I don’t see how going to this from 40 goals is all on him. There’s an issue in the coaching and they can’t figure out where Timo should be constantly moving him from RW to LW every other week isn’t helping at all or moving him from 1st to 3rd line after every game isn’t helping either.
I think my biggest gripe was that we went into the third with this being a very winnable game. We had the momentum with that late goal… Only behind by a single goal… Gibson was out… But then we just threw it all away in such a spectacular manner
When I was feeding my daughter at 3AM, I was still pissed about this loss. I can take losing close game where we fight to the bitter end, but we straight up gave up after the 1st period. Normally we complain that you can’t play 40 minutes and expect to win. Last night, we played 20 minutes.
I’m starting to turn on Lindy. This one, and our repeated inability to win B2Bs, are on coaching.
New Jersey Devils: About 1/3rd of the way into the season, 7-3-0 in L10, tied with TBL for points, 2 back from the Canes and 1 point out of wildcard spot despite lots of injury issues (including our top 2 centers and a de facto season-ender for our #1 D/highest paid player) and bottom-of-the-league goaltending.
Some Devils fans: OMFG FIRE THE COACH ALREADY!
🙃
Look at the players Anaheim was without last night… Or don’t, cuz it’ll make you more mad
I still can’t get over when, in the first, Dano said something along the lines of “you want to score early, the Ducks aren’t a team you want to let hang around a few periods and gain confidence”. As soon as he said that my stomach dropped, I knew it was over.
Can someone please tell me why Timo was successful in SJ and are there major differences here – ice time, matchups, line composition, style of play, team system. For some reason I want to believe if he was on a line with Mikey and Nate he would be successful ie guys that can be first in and win the puck. Not sure how you put almost 9 mil on the 4th line though. Maybe he’s injured or from the looks of it strangling his stick all game, either way we need production from him somewhere.
Couldn’t watch the game as it aired last night (I was blacked out and made other plans instead) so I watched the highlights instead. What I saw…didn’t leave me inspired.
Good for Rico. I love him, you love him, we all all love him. How could you not? With that said, he is a second line (occasional first liner?) on a very bad Anaheim team, and if they’re able to even sniff a result like that on us, that doesn’t bode well for out team. Especially since our team was pegged by some as the one the was gonna win the whole damn thing.
I think we’ll make the playoffs. Lindy Ruff’s still not the right coach for this group in my eyes, but the team is still too talented to not make the playoffs. But is anyone else convinced this team makes it out the first round? Because as of now, I can’t confidently say that. Hope I’m wrong, obviously, but I just don’t see it without a major move.