Last time I blogged I termed the Devils’ slump a mini-crisis, it certainly became a major one since then – no doubt about it. After a troubling 1-4-1 road trip, the Devils did return home and put up a good enough performance against Tampa in a 3-2 win, but until last night that was pretty much the highlight of the last month as the team backslid into yet another four-game losing streak, each one more troubling than the last. Yes, the Devils have had and still had illnesses to speak of during this most recent part of the malaise, whether it’s norovirus or whatever I have no idea. That said, my patience for this team heading into last night’s game was at a season low given how poorly they were playing, don’t tell me this team’s automatically going to bounce back out of it when they’ve had plenty of seasons spiral out of control in recent memory.

Sure, gutting out a shootout loser point against a Florida team looking for revenge after we beat them twice down in the Sunshine State was fine. Even an OT point at Toronto was okay-ish though blowing a late lead certainly wasn’t ideal. Losing at home in regulation back to back against second-division Flyer and Senator teams however, that was alarming. I don’t want to hear about guys being sick at this point, not when you’ve been playing poorly for almost a month. And not when – let’s face it, we’re in January – it’s not like we’re the only team in the league with sick players! Seemed like Sheldon Keefe had enough of the excuses heading into yesterday’s game as well:

From that perspective, last night’s ceremony honoring former coach Jacques Lemaire couldn’t have come at a better time, both for giving the players a little reminder of the standard which used to be the norm here and just for giving the fans a bit of an upper after watching, listening or just looking at highlights and scores have been a complete downer the last few weeks. Honestly, the only games I’ve watched are ones I’ve been at the last few weeks since the cable blackout on Optimum, I could bother to go to pirated sites, bars, whatever or listen to the radio but given the way this team’s played since the blackout ironically it’s been easier to just go cold turkey for the moment. But just from what I’ve watched and heard about, the effort and execution just hasn’t been there since Christmas, whatever you want to attribute it to within a specific time period.

Of course last night was one of the home games I went to (along with the Flyer disaster over the weekend), and I already gave my thoughts on Jacques and the ring of honor ceremony when it was announced. That said, it was about what you could have expected from a fifteen-minute ceremony – see above clip. Jacques was his usual charming self, doesn’t seem like he aged a day really…but a cynic could say well he always looked old as a coach at least haha. I was pleased to see Lou Lamoriello and Larry Robinson there, obviously no two men are more joined at the hip with Jacques’ tenure(s) here than his longtime boss/GM – though Jacques needled ‘buddy’ Lou during the speech saying he worked with him and not for him haha – and long-time assistant, along with players like Stevens, Niedermayer and Brodeur, all of whom were there too.

As good as I felt during the ceremony, the first ten minutes of the game were like a wet cloth as the Devils squandered a golden chance to score on their first shift, and eventually their first mistake defensively wound up in the net putting us behind at home yet again. Even as the team’s play improved throughout the period I was still a grumpy gus down 1-0 at intermission thinking here we go again and already thinking in terms of selling my Flyers ticket next week and trading in my Vegas home game ticket in two weeks to peace out of going to home games for the next month with the contrived Four Nations tournament interrupting the season Olympic-style. A break that actually seems somewhat well-timed for us now, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Maybe the team also reached their ‘we’ve had enough’ stage as well in the second period last night as the goals and attacks came fast and furious. First, Dawson Mercer got a just reward for jumping on a turnover at the blueline and scored on a turnaround slapshot off a Nico Hischier feed to tie the game at 1:24. Yay, a goal finally….but more was to come. Dougie Hamilton dialed up the glory days of yesteryear (i.e. two years ago) with one of his patented power play bombs to give the Devils the lead less than three minutes after tying the game. Ironically the Devils’ best sequence actually came when they didn’t score a goal when back-to-back dominant shifts got the late-arriving crowd out of its seat and firmly back on the team’s side to an extent even the goals didn’t. Or at least it felt that way to me specifically.

Finally the Devils got rewarded (more) for a dominant second period in a twelve-second stretch that put the game away. Stefan Noesen scored a typical Noesen goal, a jam shot of a rebound in front at 16:01. Then on the very next shift, Mercer also channeled 2022-23 by scoring his second of the night, getting to the net to finish off a nice tic-tac-toe play from Timo Meier and Justin Dowling (really!) to make it 4-1 and conclude an almost perfect second period.

Of course, the downer was a potentially serious injury to goaltender Jacob Markstrom, a fluke play caused by Brendan Dillon and Justin Brazeau jostling for position in front, with the latter landing on top of the Devils goaltender and getting whistled for goaltender interference.

As ominous as that sequence looked, apparently the outlook on Markstrom is somewhat improved as he was reportedly in good spirits after the game. I suppose at this point a best-case scenario would be him missing the next two weeks and coming back after the break, but until official word comes we’re not out of the woods yet. In the near term, the Devils probably go with Jake Allen but I’d be lying if I said I was confident in him considering his recent poor play (albeit his relief appearance last night was spotless). There isn’t much choice at the moment though, we’ve seen how hard it is to get goalies in-season, and you’d still rather give Allen the first crack at it than trust a kid like Isaac Poulter to take the puck and run with it.

At least last night was a good start in terms of the team finding its game from early in the season, hopefully they’ll be able to keep it up through the break and get back some of the cushion they lost through this stretch of shaky play.