Battle Of Hudson

Goaltenders Martin Brodeur and Henrik Lundqvist shaking hands after the Devils’ disasterous Winter Classic defeat

Honestly, the less time I spend recapping the ’13-14 Devils season the better.  There weren’t many things to take pride in this season…one of them was the play of legend Jaromir Jagr, who turned back the clock with a virtuoso performance (24 goals and 64 points in 80 games with a +15).  Jagr’s presence helped linemate Travis Zajac find some semblance of his offensive game back, not to where it was three years ago but still his 17 goals and 45 points were at least a step back in the right direction.  After a slow start following his new six-year deal in the offseason, Adam Henrique scored 25 goals and currently has the team lead.  On defense, our brightest star was Andy Greene who put up 32 points and averaged over twenty-four minutes a game playing as the #1 guy, finally getting some notice after unceremoniously being overlooked for the US hockey team.  Marek Zidlicky also deserves special notice with 40 points and 10 goals, both of which led the defense.  And Jon Merrill shot up the depth chart in his first full season after three years at the university of Michigan and a short apprenticeship in the AHL, playing in all situations.   Another bright spot was the play of ballyhooed acquisition Cory Schnieder, who despite no goal support and neverending contreversy surrounding the presence of Martin Brodeur, managed in the end to put up his usual stellar numbers with a 1.97 GAA and .921 save percentage in 43 games, a touch more than he’s played in the past but still not enough for this team to fully benefit going forward.  Our nine OT wins and seemingly neverending string of close games provided both excitement and angst.

For the most part, that’s where the positives end as ultimately the ’13-14 season will be remembered as a series of almosts and what ifs.  Here, I’ll provide one last look back at the biggest lowlights of the season:

1. October 7 – Oilers 5, Devils 4 in Edmonton…while I could have put the 0-4-3 start as a whole in this spot, the Oiler game was especially troubling.  Losing the season opener in Pittsburgh wasn’t particuarly alarming, other than being shut out by playoff goat Marc-Andre Fleury.  Losing the home opener against the Isles the next night was more annoying than anything else, considering it came in a shootout (and the 0-6 there portended bad things to come).  However it was this game in particular that perfectly illustrated all the ills that would befall this team in the weeks and months to come.  When you lose a 3-0 lead in the third period that’s bad enough, when you lose it to a perennial second-division team that’s worse, but when you come back to tie the game in the final minute then lose in a shootout to the immortal Jason LaBarbera that’s just the icing on a turd cake.  Losing to a backup goaltender proved to be another alarming trend – on the way to twenty such defeats – along with bad goaltending from Brodeur, blowing huge leads and losing a shootout.  All those trends cropped up in a single game.

2. November 27 – Hurricanes 4, Devils 3 in Newark…again I could have put a multi-game stretch in this slot but wanted to focus on something specific.  After the Devils had their best stretch of the season winning five of six and beating some tough teams (including Pittsburgh, Anaheim, LA and the Rangers), they lost a tough game in San Jose, okay no biggie.  Losing to the Jets at home though basically canceled out all the good that came from our 2-1 West Coast swing two nights later but it wasn’t till the Canes game just before Thanksgiving that eyebrows were really raised when Brodeur started his third consecutive game coming off of two losses, with Schnieder having his best peformance of the season in the win out in Los Angeles.  Despite that game, Schnieder would sit the next three games – all losses.  Brodeur got Monday’s game against the Jets less than 48 hours after finishing on the West Coast because he ‘wanted it’, according to coach Pete DeBoer.   Evidently that applied for Wednesday’s game too where bad Brodeur goaltending helped doom the team to a 4-3 loss and sparked Schnieder’s ‘Groundhog Day’ quote, the only time all year he showed public frustration with how he was being used.

3. December 10 – Columbus 5, Devils 4 in Columbus…again multiple trends were on display here.  Lose to a backup goalie?  Check (Curtis McIlhenney).  Blow a big lead?  Check – from 3-1 up in the middle of the second period the Devils blew the game, not even getting a point in Nationwide Arena when Nick Foligno scored the tie-breaking goal with barely a minute and a half left in regulation, a brutal loss that would wind up affecting their playoff chances.  More bad Brodeur goaltending?  Check.  And at that point Columbus was without key players like Nathan Horton, Marian Gaborik and Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky.  Not beating the Jackets then proved to be costly later.

4. January 26 – Rangers 7, Devils 3 at Yankee Stadium…how can I not include this game?  At the time of the Stadium Series classic, the Devils and Rangers were neck-and-neck in the playoff race.  Brodeur got the start here too, and things looked good for a time as the Devils jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first period.  However, the rest of the game looked like Rocky vs. Mr. T (the first fight) in Rocky III where the Rangers just kicked the crap out of us the rest of the afternoon.  After six goals went past Marty in just two periods, finally he was pulled – and would not start another game until after the Olympic break – but things didn’t get any better in the third as Derek Stepan‘s penalty shot goal on Schnieder completed the rout.  While the Rangers kept rolling after that game, the Devils went into a funk as evidenced by a desultory loss in St. Louis two nights later folowed by #5 on my list:

5. January 30 – February 2: Three straight OT games, three straight blown leads in the final two minutes.  A truly staggering stretch that wound up costing us more psychologically than anything else since we actually won the first game in Dallas and got loser points in the other two.  However, giving up a goal to Tyler Seguin with 52 seconds left up 2-1 set a bad trend that would continue throughout the week.  In Nashville the next night it was David Legwand who scored the tying goal from 2-1 down with just 11 seconds left, en route to a Predators win in OT.  And just when you thought it couldn’t possibly happen again, P.A. Parenteau scored as we blew a 1-0 lead with 1:47 left in regulation and the goalie pulled when coach Patrick Roy made one of his many brilliant moves this season, pulling his goalie insanely early when his team had our fourth line pinned in its own zone.  Of course we lost in OT again when Ryan O’Reilly scored on a power play.  All three games came with Schnieder in net, which didn’t particularly help his W/L record.

6. March 14 – Panthers 5, Devils 3…Perhaps the most crushing blow of all this season, as the Devils had come out of the Olympic break in their second (and last) true hot streak of the season winning five of seven.  Despite some defensive hiccups and having the goaltending situation get messy again with Marty and Cory essentially splitting starts after the break, the Devils were on their way to making a real run.  Especially with a favorable schedule down the stretch as we’ve been told it was for months.  However the Devils blew it big-time in Sunrise against another non-playoff team who’d liquidated at the deadline, getting out to a 3-1 second period lead and again blowing it, with this time Schnieder being the culprit in net.  That defeat started a 2-4-2 stretch (including a five-game homestand mind you!) which effectively doomed the Devils’ chances at late April hockey.

7. April 7 – Flames 1, Devils 0…Our last gasp came with a 3-0-3 stretch coming into this game, and two straight wins over the Capitals and Hurricanes (effectively wiping out both from our rear-view mirror).  Despite shootout losses to the Isles and Sabres during that streak, and a messy win over the Panthers where Brodeur was pulled after a 3-0 lead turned into a 4-3 game, the Devils still had an opportunity to get within one point of the Blue Jackets for the final spot with another win and keep the pressure on.  Alas, the ever-elusive three-game winning streak – only one such all season – once again failed to materialize as the immortal Karri Ramo shut us out with Mark Giordano‘s early third-period goal providing all the offense the Flames needed against the hard-luck Schnieder.  Kind of a fitting end for our season, considering the team’s 26th ranked offense with 84 goals scored in Schenider’s 43 starts.

With Columbus winning their game in Dallas and Detroit’s late-game tying goal in Pittsburgh giving them a point, the Devils were officially eliminated from the postseason with three games to go as both the Blue Jackets and Red Wings clinched playoff berths.  Now every Eastern playoff berth is decided with only seeding to be determined (aside from the top-seeded Bruins and second seed Penguins).  Only one playoff berth out West is left to be decided with Dallas and Phoenix set to meet in a potentially decisive matchup in the desert on Sunday if things break right.

As far as the Devils, the full breakdown of what went wrong and where the Devils go from here will come this weekend when our season ends in actuality.  However, now that the team’s out of the race it’s obvious that all of our key injured players (Patrik Elias, Ryane Clowe, Adam Henrique and Bryce Salvador) should be shut down for the season.  What they do with the young defensemen is anyone’s guess…at this point Eric Gelinas should be getting a regular shift for the final three games though.  Adam Larsson should too, though it’s possible he gets sent back down to play instead which is fine, doesn’t really make much of a difference at this point – if anything I’d kind of prefer he and Gelinas both went down since playing NHL games with zero on the line for either team really isn’t going to tell more than playing AHL games where the team’s chasing a playoff berth would.  Maybe they could give defenseman Jon Merrill a rest for the remainder of the season, since he’s clearly graduated from the minors and has already played more this season than in prior years.

While coach Pete DeBoer already committed to playing Cory Schnieder tomorrow in all likelihood Martin Brodeur will be in net for the final two games of the season – both at home – as an extended goodbye to the fans, since it’s obvious he’s going to leave one way or the other.  It’ll be up to the rest of the league to determine whether he retires or actually gets to play somewhere else next year.  For all my issues with Marty this year, at least it’ll be nice to give him a proper sendoff.  Who knows, maybe the Devils can even win a shootout at some point over the final three games now that the pressure’s off.  I’m not sure how much good it’d do to get off the schnied at ‘this’ point though since we’ll still get beaten over the head with our shootout record all summer whether it’s 0-11 or 1-11, either way it was a key factor in missing the playoffs.

At this point though, it’ll be nice to have a rest from this team quite honestly.  What sucks is just how long the rest will be.  After a few weeks I’ll be counting down to October again.  Such is the life of a fan.

Cory Schnieder, Martin Brodeur and Andy Greene during a recent loss to the Bruins. (NJ.com) Brodeur raised questions about the organization’s mindset earlier today

As the Devils sit on the verge of missing the playoffs for the third time in four seasons, everyone’s looking for answers as to how an organization that’s generally been first-rate under GM Lou Lamoriello – and just two years ago was in the Stanley Cup Finals – has now fallen on hard times.  Many (including me) trace it back to the staggering dual departures of Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk in back-to-back offseasons.  Let’s face it, they were the building blocks of the 2012 team for better and worse.  People can claim that run was a fluke, but those Devils were an elite team in the second half once they made some key additions (defenseman Marek Zidlicky, forward Alexei Ponikarovsky and the CBGB fourth line of playoff fame) and especially after getting top centerman Travis Zajac back late in the season.  With captain Parise’s departure that team never got a second chance to finish what they came oh-so-close to that spring.

However, goaltender Martin Brodeur who has seen and done it all with the Devils thinks another problem currently exists.  Talking with local media this afternoon, Brodeur suggested that mediocrity’s become acceptable in the Devils organization.

“The thing is, we used to be a team that didn’t hover over .500,” Brodeur said Wednesday afternoon. “That’s something only the last few years we’ve been content with being that.  Even the year we made it all the way (2011-12), all year it’s not like we gave ourselves a big cushion. We had to come back late to the middle of the season and we had to push to get to the playoffs.”

 “So that’s something that going forward (Lamoriello) has to make sure we get back to that for the organization to be more of an impact. That means having a solid regular season and a solid start to the regular season, no letdown and be a power house like some of the teams are.”

 “That’s what when you sit back right now and look at what might happen tonight (the Devils being official eliminated), you think about these things,” Brodeur said. “The last few years it’s almost like .500 is okay. Let’s get a few games and we’ll start rolling then. That’s an attitude we never had before. It’s been creeping up a little bit and it needs to be addressed.”

Granted, when I read these quotes I was tempted to pop off something to the effect of ‘sure we’ve embraced mediocrity – we played YOU over a clearly superior goaltender for half the season’.  Not to mention Brodeur clearly has an axe to grind with the organization given Lou’s trade for Cory Schnieder this offseason and coach Pete DeBoer‘s extended benchings of the legend from mid-January to the Olympic break and this month as the Devils have made what looks like a futile run for the final wild card spot.  It’s really easy to see hurt or bias in Marty’s quotes, particularly in the light of other things Marty has said (fair and unfair) throughout the season…but when you put all that aside, a hard truth still exists:

Marty’s absolutely correct.

While it’s hard for me to believe Lou himself has accepted mediocrity, the fact of the matter is DeBoer’s job has never seriously been on the line in the last two years despite stretches of hockey that haven’t been seen since the dark days of the team’s arrival in New Jersey.  Whereas the old Lou fired coaches Robbie Ftorek and Claude Julien when the team was in first place, DeBoer still has a job despite being well on their way to missing the playoffs two years in a row.  Nor have any of the veteran players been held seriously accountable for the losing during that time, even as many of them are vastly underperforming their career numbers.  Accountability only exists if you’re under 25 years old here.  Especially when it’s come to Brodeur himself, when he’s continually allowed to be bigger than the team and not only dictate playing time (till recently) but also say whatever he wants and never get called on the carpet for it.

Part of that goes back to the head coach, who in my mind is the biggest culprit of this ‘mediocrity is okay’ mindset.  Granted, I’ve gone back and forth on whether I’ve wanted Pete to stay over the last two years myself.  Despite my problems with his double-standard (a quick trigger finger on the younger players, an unlimited leash for almost every vet) I think tactically his system can work with the right players and let’s face it the talent level has been affected by many factors that have nothing to do with Pete or Lou – specifically ownership, along with the aformentioned Parise and Kovy departures.  Talent drain or no talent drain though, let’s face it…most of Pete’s press conferences after we lose emphasize effort over results.  Whether it’s ‘we played a tough team in an tough building’, or ‘we ran into a hot goalie tonight’, or ‘we just couldn’t get the bounces’, very rarely will Pete take the team to task publicly.  Or hold them accountable for losing.

While you can’t crack the whip all the time and it’s okay to talk about effort once in a while, at some point it’s become eerily reminiscent of the Rich Kotite New York Jets era…where it was okay if ‘we try-hed ha-wd’.  Granted, it was another time with another team but let’s face it – you would never hear Jacques Lemaire, Pat Burns or even Larry Robinson consistently give the team props for trying.  If you fancy yourself a top flight organization, it’s not enough just to give effort.  Plenty of teams in the NHL give effort, many of them have jumped up and bit us in the fanny this year as we continually lose to teams below us in the standings.  It’s this usually cool-headed demeanor that’s the reason Pete hasn’t lost the locker room yet, but it’s also a big reason we’ve remained stuck in neutral for two years, with many of the same problems that plagued Pete in Florida (inability to develop younger players, problems scoring and holding leads).

Ironically it was just a few hours before Marty’s comments today that Pete did blow his stack for a rare time in practice and let loose a stream of four-letter words about how the team wasn’t paying enough attention to detail offensively.  Too little too late?  Or indiciative of trying to light a fire under a team that’s lost hope now that the playoff push got put on ice Monday night?  After Karri Ramo put up the ‘best goaltending performance I’ve seen ever in the NHL’, according to Jaromir Jagr.  It’s easy to see why Ramo was so good when you consider our best scoring chances were coming from pluggers like Ryan Carter and Steve Bernier.  Either way, clearly things have come to a head in Newark and this offseason will be very interesting.