The Avs’ Ryan O’Reilly celebrates his first-period goal last night

Last night’s game in Colorado saw the Devils make the wrong kind of history, losing their twelfth straight shootout dating back to last season – breaking an NHL record ironically that had been set earlier this year by Detroit.  This season alone, the Devils are 0-8 in the skills competition and have scored a meager one goal in twenty-five attempts.  Tellingly, that one goal was from rookie Reid Boucher when he was barely off the bus from Albany.  Of course his more recent second attempt didn’t go quite as swimmingly, missing the net as he’s been fully indoctrinated into the vortex of suck.  Whether it’s missing the net, weak shots or allowing bad goals like Cory Schnieder letting Ryan O’Reilly‘s clincher go through his glove, the Devils can literally do nothing right in the shootout.  Taking the meaning of a shootout literally, the Devils are basically dueling with squirt guns and the other team has sniper rifles.  Ironically this is the same team that went 12-2 in the shootout two years ago and more or less made the playoffs because of those 12 extra points.  Now it seems as if we’re getting the bill for all our success in the first few years of the skills competition, and having to pay it all off this year.  To the point where we may well miss the postseason because of it.

It’s not just the Devils who the shootout has had a noticeable effect on this year.  Toronto’s nine shootout wins kept them afloat during a stretch where they had just four regulation wins in thirty-one games.  More than a third of the Caps’ wins have come via the skills competition (8 of 22). Only Boston has participated in fewer than four shootouts this season (1-2 in their three) with most of the league having played around 50 games, so clearly it has an impact.  Maybe it seems more noticeable this year since the Devils are involved on the negative end to the nth degree.  It does seem like the sheer number of games going to OT and the SO are increasing though. Heck, our shootout record would be even worse if not for our 6-3 OT record.  So in total, we’ve had 17 games of 49 go to OT, and almost half of them the now-dreaded shootout.  It is what it is at this point, purists will never fully warm up to it but will still watch, and the casual fans love it so it’s here to stay for sure since games ‘have’ to have a winner.  I’m pretty sure Derek will agree with me on the hogwash of that statement.  The most popular sport in the rest of the world (soccer) doesn’t seem to have a big issue with ties though obviously they have penalty kicks to settle cup games and playoffs.  That’s one thing the NHL at least still gets right, the postseason.  No shootouts, no Bettman points for losing in OT.  You win in as long as it takes you to win.

I didn’t watch much of last night’s game, as I’m fighting off a cold (so far successfully) – but clearly last night wasn’t one of our best performances in recent weeks judging by Cory Schnieder‘s 37 saves in 65 minutes of hockey.  Of course once again the Devils just refuse to score goals for Cory, the overall numbers are bad enough but he’s managed to get six of a possible eight points in his last four starts despite having six total goals to work with in that stretch.  Last night’s game isn’t really worth recapping anyway.  It was a travel loss as much as anything, considering the Devils were playing a sixth game in ten nights going from NJ to Toronto to Montreal and then Colorado.  That’s four cities in one week all across North America.  No use complaining about it, everyone else has to deal with stretches like this too, especially with more cross-conference games this year.  It’s just a fact of life in an Olympic year that you’re going to have games like this.  If anything the Devils coming out of Colorado with a point was a plus, considering the high-flying Avs have 30 wins on the year.

Even analyzing the shootout woes themselves get old.  You kinda wish Pete DeBoer would do something goofy like throw out Anton Volchenkov (yeah I know he didn’t play last night since he was ill) and hope he can pull off a Marek Malik-type move to loosen everyone up.  Let’s face it when you’re 1-27 and not even getting attempts on goal, you’re flat out pressing as a team. This is no longer just bad luck.  It’s telling that when we do practice the shootout one of the few guys who scores is Cam Janssen, who’s not even in the lineup anymore.  DeBoer got testy when beat guy Randy Miller brought up how the Penguins practice the shootout every day.  On this I probably agree with the coach, practice ain’t going to help if you have paralysis by analysis anyway.  Two years ago we barely practiced it and were almost automatic at the shootout with Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise scoring almost at will, and Martin Brodeur stopping a majority of the shots.  Somewhat tartly, DeBoer pointed out we practiced the shootout the day before yesterday and still lost.  You could get on him for throwing out Adam Henrique last night but really what’s the point?  It’s not like anyone else on the team’s scoring either though like I said that’s all the more reason why we should try something new and kooky.  If it wasn’t for the NHL stipulation that teams lose the point they gained if they allow an empty-net goal in OT, it’s gotten to the point where that would have become a real option by now at the end of OT.

I suppose the NHL has that rule to prevent teams from gaining an unfair advantage on offensive-zone faceoffs in the final minute of OT.  Still, it’d be nice to have that ‘option’ to avoid the shootout.  Other options have been discussed to curtail the sheer number of shootouts, such as playing 3-on-3 in OT and/or extending overtime itself.  Also I’ve said this before but there’s basically no other sport where you benefit from a ‘tie’ the way NHL teams benefit from the OT point.  Soccer’s the only other one with an unbalanced point system but it’s unbalanced in the right way since they have three points for a win and one for ties.  Personally I’d either up regulation wins to three points to make all games created equal, or take away the loser point for OT losses and just give away one point apiece to teams who get to the shootout – treating it like a tie and just use a shootout win merely as a tiebreaker at the end of the season.  All of the NHL’s three-point games gum up the standings even more than they would be without it, which I suppose is part of the point too.  Fostering parity, whether real or artificial is good for business. Look at the NFL, where parity’s the du jour there.  It’s the most popular sport in America in no small part because of that parity…conversely, the NBA has so little parity right now, their regular season numbers are finally starting to feel the pinch the last few years.

Ironically though all this parity is hurting trade deadline day and the market in general though.  In sheer numbers you still see the same number of moves each deadline day but they tend to be of the minor variety.  Between teams having cap issues, and there being infinitely more buyers than sellers, it depresses movement a little.  In the Devils’ case it could be a reason convenient excuse why they still have not alleviated their two-year logjam on defense.  Playing Eric Gelinas as a seventh D (basically using him as a PP specialist) and sticking Adam Larsson down in Albany indefinitely after he proved he could play in the NHL beyond any doubt earlier this season is beyond ridiculous.  You could say the seven-D rotation is working given the number of goals we’ve allowed the last few games – but actually watching the games you know the low GAA is more about the goaltenders than it is about the D, and has been for almost a month.  I realize Lou Lamoriello wants to drag his feet as long as he can in case of injuries, but honestly you think the old Lou would have kept Scott Niedermayer or Brian Rafalski down in Albany to accomodate a bunch of hold-the-fort defensemen and FA’s to be?  Recently Larry Brooks wrote a piece that was even more critical of the Devil organization than I would be, though I can’t say I disagreed with many of his points.

Still, for all the Devils’ ills in the shootout, with player personnel issues…the fact is the team’s still right there one point out of a playoff spot, unbeaten in regulation through their last six games.  With or without trades, help is on the way with Patrik Elias having returned to the lineup last night and Damien Brunner supposedly days away.  Their return would at last give the Devils a complete lineup up front to go along with their batallion on defense and a two-headed monster in goal that’s been playing particularly well since the holidays.  If you could keep up the production from the first two lines with Elias-Brunner-whomever forming a decent enough third line, then you might have something going.  Of course that’s contingent on nobody else on this team getting hurt, which isn’t a great bet given our age.  Not to mention our age and lack of speed clearly give us issues against teams like the Avs or even lesser lights like the Oilers, Jets and Isles who have youth and speed throughout their lineup.  All that said, at least making the playoffs would spare us the embarassment of forefiting a first-round pick.  There’s a long way to go before we can guarantee that though.  Especially if we’re going to continue our 0-for-the shootout indefinitely.