I’m only being half flip with my title here…for most of this season the Devils have certainly found it tougher sledding in front of their home fans at the Rock than they did playing anywhere in the rest of the world, to the point where I semi-kiddingly referred to their recent five game run of games at the Rock as the dreaded homestand. True to form, nothing was easy about these five games, but in the end you have to say the Devils did the job with three wins and seven points despite offensive issues and goaltending hiccups throughout the last week and a half.
These games certainly didn’t lack for edge of your seat entertainment value – pretty much the only non-competitive game was the one the Devils got smoked in by the Avalanche, though admittedly it sounded like a couple of questionable disallowed goals could have changed the game early. When I heard about the details, I compared it to the Blues game a few weeks ago where a bad/unlucky start just led to a poor performance. As luck would have it, that was one of the two games I didn’t go to during this homestand (the most recent one against the Hawks yesterday afternoon being the other).
Last Friday the Devils began this five-game homestand against the Kraken in a tense back-and-forth game that I couldn’t even enjoy despite attending since I was feeling the effects of lack of sleep the night before and probably should have taken Advil before the game as opposed to after it. In what proved to be a harbinger of the next few games, the Devils couldn’t find the answer to Phillip Grubauer in the Kraken net for much of the night, as Seattle’s normally embattled netminder made thirty-three saves in a strong showing.
Honestly I probably have to watch the highlights over just to even remember anything of what went on other than Timo Meier’s fortuitous tie-breaking goal early in the third period (but that’s what happens when again, you’re basically a zombie during the game, and you also go to two other games shortly after that). To be fair, it was only fortuitous in the sense that the puck caromed to him but he also made his own luck going to the net and looking for pucks.
From what I do remember, I wasn’t that unhappy at the game itself. Of course I was too tired and preoccupied with my headache to care on the one hand, but on the other I did think the Devils played a pretty solid game for fifty-nine minutes, only making me nervous in the final moments with a couple of unnecessary icings blindly heaving towards the empty net to amp up the suspense. After some of the brutal games at the Rock the last couple years though, I was just content to leave there with a win. After that game however, came the Colorado dud followed by another debacle against the Leafs in New Jersey.
This was certainly a different game than Opening Night to be fair, in October we got outskated off our own ice – but if that game was annoying, this one was beyond frustrating in the end. From the outset of the game, the Devils were two steps ahead of the Leafs and I figured they’d have a big effort given they were doubly motivated after the home dud two nights earlier, and trying to make good for the Opening Night dud against the Leafs. Even as the Devils got like fifteen of the first sixteen shots while failing to score I wasn’t actually worried, unlike other games where they failed to score early the team didn’t get frustrated and kept skating the Leafs into the ground.
Finally the Devils would get ‘a’ reward for all their territorial dominance when Jesper Bratt’s seeing-eye pass got through three Leafs and onto the stick of Ondrej Palat, who put one past Jersey boy Anthony Stolarz midway through the second period. It would be the only goal he allowed despite outshooting the Leafs 39-17 on the night, against the team he rooted for growing up. Funny thing is I even thought Jacob Markstrom came up big in the first two periods for a guy who faced one shot in the first, the Leafs did have a couple of high-danger chances including a breakaway that Markstrom stopped. Which made the goal he actually allowed in the third period all the more annoying, a goal that according to the man himself he just ‘whiffed’ on. A shorthanded goal, no less.
Fast-forward about eight minutes into the video if you want to see a total trainwreck…after a mad sequence where the Devils failed to score in the Leafs’ end, Connor Dewar found himself one-on-one with Dawson Mercer and slew-footed him to the ice with no call, then found an open Pontus Holmberg, who rushed his shot but his floater still trickled through Markstrom for maybe the most annoying goal I’ve seen all season. I was pretty much mad at everyone – the refs for not calling the obvious trip, Dougie Hamilton for his slow-motion skating getting back into the play and finally on Markstrom for blowing chunks the one lousy save we needed to have in the third period to take a 1-0 win home.
After being reasonably confident for most of the game even as the Devils tried and failed to score, I knew then we were going to be in for it – it was just a matter of whether it would happen at the end of regulation or OT. Sure enough, we finally allowed Auston Matthews one too many chances on the three-on-three and he converted to finish off the inevitable yet maddening result. I can’t say I was unhappy with anything but the score…but at a certain point you need to start cashing in on chances. Having two straight games with one lousy goal isn’t exactly how you wanted to go into a game with the Kings on Thursday, as they came into New Jersey on a six-game heater with one of the best defensive records in the league.
I wasn’t actually going to go to the game Thursday, till I realized that Saturday’s game was a matinee and I had plans then, so I wound up once again swapping tickets from a later game in the season to get a ticket for that game, since I’d initially used my own ticket as a buyback. Sadly the buybacks and ticket swaps are about the only ‘perk’ of Devil season tickets these days – that and the two or three access events throughout the season – but admittedly it’s a good one. I wound up regretting going to the Blues game a few weeks back in similar circumstances – having plans for the game after it so deciding to go to that game instead, and it looked like I was going to regret going to this one too for much of the night.
Honestly it was an annoying watch, the Kings pretty much set back hockey twenty years or so with their passive low block. I was ranting to my friend they weren’t even trying to score goals, they were just playing possum waiting for us to make a mistake. I realize that’s what people thought of the Devils all the years the ‘trap’ was a four-letter word, but honestly most of those Devil teams at least tried to score goals and create offense. Maybe the 2003 Devils and the Brent Sutter version a few years later who weren’t as talented were about as stay-at-home as what I saw out of the Kings Thursday (sidenote: after all that and watching the Kings not try to create any offense of their own for fifty plus minutes, imagine my surprise when I saw the Kings-Rangers score in the second period Saturday…well in a sense maybe not that much of a surprise given how toxic things are at the Garden right now, but I’m sure Derek’s covered that in his latest posts).
To their credit, the Devils didn’t get frustrated with the tempo of the game or the lack of space to create any offense. At least they were trying to create offense, but give the Kings credit for being solid in their own end. Pretty much the only highlight of note for the first thirty-five minutes or so of the game came when the slow and slower pairing of Hamilton and Brenden Dillon conceded a breakaway and Dillon foolishly hooked Alex Turcotte, leading to a penalty shot. Perhaps it was fitting that Turcotte whiffed, shooting wide. The Kings couldn’t even create an offensive chance with a one-on-zero.
Maybe someone finally told them if they just get a shot on Markstrom things can happen. Sure enough, they did after another annoying sequence when Jack Hughes’ overpassing on a two-on-one led to the Kings getting a counter going the other way, and Jordan Spence scored on a slapshot from the point that again trickled through the Devils’ goaltender. Even CPU goalies in NHL ’94 would have stopped that shot but Markstrom’s latest whiff got me to roll my eyes and just like the other night I thought we were in for it after that clunker of a goal allowed.
If nothing else however, the Devils showed their resilience getting that goal back less than two minutes later. This time Jack didn’t overpass when he skated around the Kings’ defense and put one on net that was deflected past David Rittich at long last by the same Palat who scored the Devils’ only goal two nights before. I was almost laughing at this point by the absurdity in back-to-back games. This time the Devils ‘only’ outshot the Kings 26-14 but at least this time they got the all-important second goal with Palat showing skill I wasn’t sure he still had, backhanding a pass through traffic to a wide-open Jack in front, putting the Devils up by two with just over seven minutes left.
I half-joked that we scored too soon, now the Kings were finally going to have to try to score. Sure enough, they had some of their best chances of the game but the Devils stood tall, and finally got some breathing room late in the game thanks to an unlikely hero:
Having that result, and two wins out of the three home games I attended made all the annoyances worth it. I couldn’t watch much of Saturday’s game but I was worried when the Devils were down 1-0 to the Blackhawks after two periods, I was like what is wrong with this offense? Sort of like the Kings game where they finally scored all their goals late in the game, the Devils finished their homestand with a four-goal flourish in the third period. I only saw the score once early in the period after the Devils tied the game, then a few minutes later I saw it was 4-1 and I was like huh? But at least the Devils finally put on a show for the weekend crowd, as it seems they save a lot of their worst home games for matinees.
After Christmas, the Devils can get more comfortable on the road with a six-game trip (including four on the West Coast) at least hah, not to mention the next two at St. Louis and Columbus before another three-game homestand heading into Christmas. At least it’s unlikely the Devils will no-show games against the Penguins, Rangers and Hurricanes. Of course, it’s a one game at a time approach for Sheldon Keefe and his team, and if one thing is most encouraging about this homestand it’s that the team is clearly buying into his defensive system. You would think the offense (and specifically the suddenly punchless power play) will find its groove again, but if the Devils keep playing as sound as they have been in their own end, eventually things will all come together.
hasan4978
Derek
Battle Of Hudson 