In my latest edition of symbolic YouTubing, I’m rolling out the Gong Show theme. I never watched the show but it was a late ’70’s talent show satire where you were gonged by the celebrity judges if your act was bad enough.  Right now the Devils would be good for multiple gongs a night.  I never thought I would say this but it is now getting as bad as the dark days of the John MacLean era all over again.  I was a skeptic about this team in the summer but I never thought we would be so bad we’d be the last winless team left in the NHL.  While the Devils’ struggles last year were mostly due to a lack of scoring touch and bad goaltending, this year everything’s taken turns breaking down.  Worse yet, the effort doesn’t seem to be there the last couple of games which is a sign of players tuning out coach Pete DeBoer.  When guys like Stephen Gionta and Mattias Tedenby (!) are among your better players, that screams vets going through the motions.  I wasn’t sure Travis Zajac was even alive until he finally managed to score on the tail end of a lengthy 5-on-3 early in the third period.  Adam Henrique is still on the back of a milk carton.

Typically, the Devils fell into a rabbit hole early when ex-Sen Anton Volchenkov screened Martin Brodeur on an Erik Karlsson shot – literally seconds after broadcaster Chico Resch said he was talking to Karlsson and the Norris-caliber defenseman was despondent he hadn’t yet returned to his former level after his achilles injury.  Talk about a reverse jinx! Less than two and a half minutes later, Bobby Ryan beat Brodeur shortside for a bad goal and the Devils were down two before the seven-minute mark.  Seeing the urgency, DeBoer took a timeout and the Devils resumed their usual ‘pepper the goalie with shots into his chest’ and dominate shots on goal without getting any real chances while giving up the best chances.  Zach Smith‘s goal late in the second balooned the Senators’ lead to 3-0 despite being outshot 23-11 in the first two periods.  At least it wasn’t as absurd as our game with them last year where we outshot Ottawa 33-11 and lost 2-0.  Yes, Craig Anderson is a good goalie but let’s face it, we make every goalie look like Anderson.

It’s to the point where I don’t even want to watch these games right now.  Of course my mood isn’t helped by my utter lack of sleep/headaches this week.  Maybe I’m still paying the price for staying up late for the Vancouver and Edmonton fiasco endings last week. Between the team’s play and the ridiculous goal song booing nonsense, I’m actually glad I let one of my friends buy my pair of tickets for Saturday.  Sad to say, the head coach is going to pay for this extended run of bad play with his job sooner rather than later.  How can he not?  I know we had the Finals run in 2012, but since then the Devils have been a disaster.  Eleven total wins (nine regulation) in 41 games is just unacceptable.  MacLean was the worst coach in NHL history for me – considering how good the team was in the second half compared to how bad they were in the first half – and he had nine wins in 33 games.