Co-coaches Adam Oates and Lou Lamoriello try to keep the Devils’ fading playoff hopes alive

I admit it, I scoffed at the notion of the Devils still being alive when Steve Cangialosi said after the Devils got thumped four straight games that they probably needed to sweep the homestand to have a chance at the playoffs.  While it isn’t exactly time to eat crow yet after four straight wins have brought the Devils to within eight points of a spot, it is cooking in the oven.  It isn’t even so much that I thought sweeping the homestand was impossible with who we were playing (and arguably our two toughest games are still to come), though our four-game winning streak was the longest in two seasons.  Even aside from that, for the longest time it looked as if it would take close to 100 points to make the playoffs in the East but for some reason the Bruins have fallen apart and nobody else has stepped forward.  Shoot, the Panthers who are in front of us just traded Sean Bergenheim – which makes the notion of our not selling at the deadline even more ludicrous on the surface.

Honestly the Devils still aren’t even playing all that well, certainly not enough for me to believe yet that they can do what’s needed to be done in March to sustain this run, let alone tomorrow night or Friday.  Our homestand started in the most hair-raising way possible with the Devils needing a shootout to beat the worst team in the league, after they were only able to score one time against Michael Neuvirth in sixty-five minutes despite 35 shots on net.  Ironically our win against Vancouver on Friday looks better in hindsight after they managed to beat the Islanders, Rangers and Bruins around our game though we did get the benefit of playing them the night after their wild west shootout win in MSG.  After jumping on another bad team (Carolina) Saturday the Devils’ streak reached three in a row, a plateau they’d reached two other times this season without getting to four.  Fortunately they had another last-place team on the docket with the Coyotes coming to town Monday.  In a script that’s become farcically familiar over this second half, again the Devils got outshot by double digits and still won.

In fact the Devils have only outshot their opponent in three of the last twenty games (many of those times being outshot by double digits) and yet have managed to go 12-6-2.   To say goaltender Cory Schneider’s playing well would be an understatement.  After a slow start earlier this season, Cory’s really kicked it into high gear more than justifying the six-year extension he got this offseason despite never having been a day-in day-out starting goalie before.  Perhaps the most encouraging sign is Cory’s play has gotten better as the season’s gone on.  His splits of a 2.22 GAA and .926 save percentage are impressive enough considering the dumpster fire surrounding him most nights, but his month-to-month save percentage tells an even more remarkable story:

October .906, November .922, December .924, January .940, February .948

Having a .940 save percentage for any length of time is remarkable enough, let alone for two whole months.  Not only has his save percentage gone up but his quota of puckhandling mistakes have gone down, and clearly the new staff doesn’t ask Cory to go crazy playing the puck to begin with.  It seemed like the old staff wanted him to be Martin Brodeur with his stick and couldn’t adjust the system to account for the fact he wasn’t.  Thankfully for the moment at least, Cory’s quieted the doubters who were prejudiced against him earlier in the season because he wasn’t Marty.

Other than Cory, there have been few bright spots for a Devils team that has been out of the playoff hunt for the majority of the season but one of them’s been defenseman Adam Larsson’s play since the new year, shortly after the new staff came in and put him on the first pairing with Andy Greene.  In the twenty-one games of 2015, Larsson’s played an average of 23:21 a night with a goal, twelve assists and a +8 and has been one of the three stars of the game twice on this homestand already.  While his defensive improvement under Lou Lamoriello and Scott Stevens has been encouraging, his offensive improvement’s been stunning.  Larsson had 31 points in 149 NHL games before 2015, but his thirteen in the last twenty-one games show he can indeed be a two-way force.  Though he only got an assist on Tuomo Ruutu’s opening goal Saturday night, he fired a bomb of a shot we haven’t seen the likes of which since his rookie year when he scored a goal against the Flyers in the third period of Game 2 that arguably turned the series around.

While offensively the Devils have been littered with players having dissapointing years, free agent signing Mike Cammalleri has not been among them.  Despite missing a dozen games earlier this year, Camm’s managed to score twenty-two goals in the 48 games he has played, including four in the last three games.  Not only has he scored but he’s been a pro’s pro in every way playing in all situations (ES, PK, PP) as well as switching from wing to center in the second half of the season.  Other than Cammalleri, the Devils’ best forwards have been role players like Steve Bernier, Jordin Tootoo and Scott Gomez.  Tootoo in particular has benefited over the last few weeks from increased icetime over the last few weeks, even putting up a point in his last three games.  Tootoo’s fast becoming a fan favorite too as I saw a few of his jerseys last night at the Rock.  While attendance understandably wasn’t great, apparently the fans in attendance at least didn’t care about draft picks or selling off at the deadline.

Which leads me to my main pet peeves the second half of this season – fans who go overboard rooting for losses to get a higher draft pick or to sell off players at the deadline to get assets (picks) back.  Honestly on some level I can understand it, part of me was hoping Boston and Florida wouldn’t lose this week and provide Lou with an excuse not to sell, and clearly the Devils need their first-rounder to be an impact forward given the current lack of them in the system – just look at how Albany’s fallen off this season once they lost ‘their Cory’ (Keith Kinkaid, who’s been promoted here).  Even that stuff I can live with to a degree, so long as it’s not over the top the way it can get on message boards.

What really grates my gears is the idea that making the playoffs, or ‘sneaking into the last spot’ somehow isn’t worth it because of the belief that we won’t win in the playoffs anyway.  Resisting the urge to post the Herm Edwards ‘You play to win the game!’ clip, let us suspend reality for a moment and say the Devils get the last wild card in April.  If that ever happened, it would be because the Devils played well for a sustained period.  They’d have to…just look at the fact that going 12-6-2 has only brought us to eight points back.  We’d have to play even better in March to keep up the pace we’d need to make the postseason.  That isn’t sneaking in, that’s streaking in.  Assuming that happened, why couldn’t the Devils beat any team in the postseason?  Do I think they can beat any team in the postseason?  Right now no, but if the Devils were to go on a streak that would enable them to make the postseason your perspective has to change at that point.  This isn’t the NBA’s Eastern Conference where you’ll probably make the playoffs with a 34-48 record.  THAT is backing in.

Now do I think the Devils have any chance of playing that well through March and April with a harder schedule down the stretch?  Right now no, for reasons I already stated earlier.  But is it really that bad to like the fact you have the possibility of having meaningful games in March?  Am I not allowed to be a little bit selfish as a fan that’s going to the majority of these games, not wanting to go to fifteen preseason games in the second half of the season?  People can harp on the fact that not selling off at the deadline and not getting a higher pick theoretically hurts the future but let’s get real here…picks are a crapshoot for the most part with the possible exception of the big two this year anyway, and we had little chance of getting McDavid or Eichel regardless.  I’ve seen this franchise pick Zach Parise at #17 and Martin Brodeur at #20, why should I get wrapped up over the fact that we might be picking #14 instead of #7 this year?  Conversely, I’ve seen many high picks bust over the years although we haven’t had that many picks ourselves in the top ten over the last two decades.

As for not selling off at the deadline, at this point I actually think Jaromir Jagr’s getting traded either way since he’s clearly unhappy, being more marginalized (and the team’s winning with him getting less icetime too) and still has some name value.  I also think defenseman Marek Zidlicky probably doesn’t want to be traded and may well invoke his NTC even if Lou wanted to deal him.  After the big two, what’s there to really trade?  Maybe you get 3rds and 4ths for role players like Gomez, Tootoo and Bernier?  And trading them is kind of counterproductive cause you might want to re-sign one or two if not all of them, trading them makes that less likely.  Can you really get anything worthwhile for the shells of Michael Ryder or Martin Havlat at this point?   So as much as I wanted the Devils to sell off and recoup some picks, it might not even be that fruitful anyway.

Plus all the talk about picks ignores the fact that there are tangible benefits to ‘meaningless’ wins now.  Not the least of which is the fact Cory’s establishing himself as an upper-echelon goaltender.  You also kind of need the young guys on defense to take a step up.  People talk about draft picks, how about developing the younger players you already have?!  Right now this second half has been tremendously beneficial to Larsson, and defenseman Jon Merrill’s slowly rebounded from a spotty start.  It’s been a rockier road for Eric Gelinas, who after being a healthy scratch for two straight weeks was again benched last night after an ill-timed pinch.  Theoretically if you want the team to lose you want Gelinas to keep screwing up but how does that benefit the team’s future?  Up front it would at least be nice if guys who are actually going to be around next year start rebounding and get some confidence going into 2015-16.  I’ll leave my thoughts on the coaching for another day, but suffice it to say even an improved winning percentage isn’t convincing me anyone on this staff is a long-term coaching solution.  Still you at least have to find out what you have behind the bench with assistants Adam Oates and Scott Stevens, for better and worse.

Of course my entire rant could be meaningless within twenty-four hours if the Devils lose to Calgary again, the way they did earlier this season and late last season when a horrific 1-0 loss all but spelled the end of their playoff chances in 2013-14.  Hopefully history doesn’t repeat itself tomorrow.