If I didn’t know better I’d swear this was 2023…or 2006, or 2002. Whatever year you want to name where the Devils go down to Carolina to start a series and promptly look intimidated and not ready to play playoff hockey, today proved to be no different than any of those series openers in Raleigh. Of course if you’ve been watching and/or paying attention to the Devils for weeks, Easter afternoon’s 4-1 no-show wasn’t even a surprise, it was almost expected – at least from where I’m sitting.

Frankly the only thing that really kept 4-1 from matching the 6-1 of two years ago was strong play by Jacob Markstrom, particularly in the first two periods as the Canes piled up shot after shot. An outcome by the way that coach Sheldon Keefe is all too willing to concede, in an astonishing admission after the game saying that we weren’t going to outshoot them in any game the entire series. Even if it’s highly likely to be true and Carolina outshot their opponents in about 75% of games this season (including all four against us), that almost feels like you’re giving too much respect to the opponent by ceding that before at least another three games are played.

I mean instead of bemoaning the fact they shoot from anywhere and everywhere, maybe it’s time to take a page out of their book and start putting pucks on net, looking for greasy goals instead of still being a perimeter team trying to make the pretty play without our best perimeter player? Carolina’s first goal is the perfect example of this when Jalen Chatfield threw a puck on net, William Carrier coasted in front of the net close enough for Brian Dumuolin to be unable to move him without knocking him into Markstrom as Chatfield’s shot was going in for the most unsurprising goal in the first three minutes of a game ever. And a tone-setting one at that.

Yeah maybe we’re destined to be outshot by Carolina this entire series, but being outshot 38-13 in the first two periods is flat out inexcusable. Honestly I’m not sure if they were intimidated by the torrid atmosphere in Raleigh the way they were to start the series two years ago, if they flat out don’t believe in themselves with the Jack Hughes and Jonas Siegenthaler injuries, or if they just don’t give a crap anymore. I’m not sure it matters at this point cause none of those would be a good sign, though it probably is some combination of at least the first two. Especially with the horrifically dumb too many men on the ice we took in the first period while on a power play.

I’d like to think option three isn’t really the answer, but I have seen this script before – the 2009-10 Devils to be exact. A team that had a great, overachieving first half then for reasons known only to them petered out in the second half with a .500 finish no-showing through a bunch of games, then had an almost complete no-show of a playoff series against the Flyers, bowing out in five easy games to the #7 seed who would go onto make a Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Finals that year. This team has reminded me so much of that team – which got Jacques Lemaire essentially fired – it’s kinda scary to be honest. It took hitting rock bottom after the first half of 2010-11 before a much-needed cleansing finally took place.

Hopefully we won’t need to do anything as drastic as firing two coaches, benching a HOF goaltender (albeit briefly) or trading a captain out the door the way that team did, but I’m not sure it won’t take comparable drastic measures to fix what’s wrong with these Devils at this point. There’s only so much of this you can put down to talent…to me we’re an 80-point team masquerading as a 90-point team, with the mentality of a 50-point team. It’s not as simple as saying well it’s the GM’s fault – although Tom Fitzgerald certainly will have plenty of things to answer for if things don’t improve in this series – or it’s the players’ fault, the coach’s fault, everyone has to take some share of the blame for these last three months. The full inquest can wait at least a week though, hopefully longer and not quite as widespread as it would seem to be now.

To be honest, I really don’t want to do the full game inquest anyway. You didn’t even have to be paying full attention to the game to see that Carolina pretty well dominated the first forty minutes and the Devils looked outclassed and intimidated once again in Raleigh, where they’ve now dropped to 1-12 in playoff games since 2001. Stealing one of the first two on the road doesn’t exactly sound so daunting, except when you consider the fact that we’d likely need to win two on the road because it’s also unlikely we sweep the home games with our lack of home-ice advantage. Oh I’m sure the crowd on Friday will at least start ramped and ready to go even if the worst-case scenario of being down 0-2 happens, but it probably won’t take long for the home fans to turn on the team, given just how bad things have been.

For what little ‘analysis’ I did on the effect that the Martin Necas and Mikko Rantanen trades and the effect cashing out on both might have had on their offense…by the same token does it really surprise anyone that Logan Stankoven – the younger forward who they got back in the latter trade – scored two of the goals?

Notice the nice feed from Taylor Hall on the latter…does that really surprise anyone either? Even when Nico Hischier finally scored to break the shutout late in the second, the goal was met with more of a golf clap and a shrug from me than anything else. At least Nico evened his account after a bad giveaway from the captain caused one of the earlier Carolina goals. Still, three goals in eighteen playoff games isn’t cutting it. Neither is Jesper Bratt’s two career playoff goals. I don’t want to hear that how can the stars produce when the depth is such crap – when Carolina’s depth guys have gone crazy on us time and again is it really too much to ask for more from our ‘best’ players?

For a game that was ostensibly still within reach, it really wasn’t…although the Devils finally outshot the Canes in the third period it was a score effects shot total and very little truly threatened Freddie Andersen in goal throughout the match. You would have liked to have tested a guy more that gave up twenty goals in his previous four games before the playoffs and to be honest, the goal he gave up was a bit of a clunker as well.

It felt like Petr Sykora’s goal in Game 7 against the Avs after we got down 3-0 and had already blown the Cup in 2001. Like yay for breaking the shutout…yawn. Andrei Svechnikov’s empty-netter sealed the inevitable with just over two and a half minutes remaining. One chance down, only a few more left. Carolina’s not exactly an easy team to beat if you’re playing at your best (particularly with our injury issues – that got multiplied by losing defenseman Brendan Dillon, forward Cody Glass and even briefly Luke Hughes all in this game), but we were nowhere near our best in any facet of Game 1, from coaching on down. If Keefe is as good a coach as many Devil fans hope he is, well buddy this is why you’re getting paid whatever the heck it is you’re getting paid here…find a way to get more out of what’s left of this team and at least make this a series before we head for an easy and quick exit.