Battle Of Hudson

It seems like every other week we as Devil fans have this debate on whether the glass is half full or half empty with our hockey team.  Never has that been more crystalized than in the last two games, where the Devils held a lead in the final minute of games at Dallas and Nashville, blew both but still wound up with three points out of a possible four at the back end of a four game in six night road trip.  A fact coach Pete DeBoer was eager to harp on in what turned out to be a tense, barely minute long press conference after last night’s OT loss in Nashville.  While correctly pointing out the bad bounce off of Jaromir Jagr‘s stick that caromed right to an open David Legwand in the final ten seconds of regulation last night that resulted in Nashville’s tying goal, he got testy when an unnamed beat writer (it sounded a lot like Tom Gulutti) made a comment about how the puck could have been cleared then, it set the coach off on a mini-Tortsish rant:

http://www.msg.com/videos/index.html?vid=2434270887

At one point, DeBoer told the reporter to ‘apply for a coaching job’, and then ranted on about how these things happen to every team in an 82-game schedule.  While factually correct, these kind of things do seem to happen to the Devils more often than your average team.  Our last two games brought back memories of our ill-fated Florida trip last year, where we also blew leads in the final minute of both games (and wound up losing both in OT, a trip that spiraled our season out of control).  Thankfully the Devils did at least rebound from a blown two-goal lead in Dallas on Thursday to win in OT.  Even in 2012 the Devils made a habit of blowing multi-goal leads but frequently overcame that tick due to heart and talent.  Pete might be tired of hearing the press look for patterns, but it’s hard to miss when a certain pattern – like blowing late leads and not scoring – becomes so prevalent that it stares at you in front of your face.

Speaking of longstanding problems, after a couple of games of goal support it seems as if ‘Goals for Cory’ needs to become a charity again, last night was the first time Cory Schnieder allowed three goals in a game during his last eleven games.  And yet he’s only 6-3-2 in those games. Six wins in eleven games allowing two goals or less in ten of them, and having a 2-1 lead late last night.  While he was certainly culpable on Shea Weber‘s first goal of the game following a puckhandling snafu, he did make 30 saves in the game and nearly carried a tired Devils team over the finish line up 2-1 late.  Of course the offense sputtered as usual, only scoring goals because Predators goalie Carter Hutton is god-awful, allowing weak shots from Patrik Elias and Jaromir Jagr to get past him in the second period.  Even after blowing another lead, the Devils still had a chance to win in OT when Michael Ryder got a breakaway…but someone must have told him it was a shootout because he fired a weak wrister into the glove of Hutton.

Ironically DeBoer was closer to the truth earlier in the week in St. Louis when he admitted the time for moral victories was past.  With every contender around us continuing to win it’s imperative we keep up, especially in winnable games like last night.  While Nashville can be tough they’re certainly not a playoff team without Pekka Rinne.  Hutton was the same goalie we chased in November with four quick early goals in a 5-0 win over the Predators at the Rock. Last night he became the latest in a series of backup goalies to beat us this year…at least eleven by my count.  Ray Emery, Antti Raanta and Curtis McIlhenney all beat us twice, as well as Jonas Gustavsson, Peter Budaj, Ben Scrivens, Josh Harding, Al Montoya, Jason LaBarbara, Joey MacDonald and now Hutton.  That’s fourteen of our thirty-three losses to backup goaltenders this year.  Which makes our scoring woes that much worse.

Like Pete I’m cutting this post short…there isn’t really much to say at this point.  Yeah we’re still in the thick of it and at least the win in Dallas temporarily stemmed the tide of what seemed to be a tsunami of negativity earlier this week.  With three games next week before the break it’s imperative the Devils at least get four points out of them.  Monday against the Avs is going to be a tough challenge at the Rock, but the weekend games – Friday at home against the Oilers and Saturday on the road against a struggling Caps team – are more feasible to hope for a win against.  Still, they need to find a way to overcome their late-game foibles and bizarre roster decisions like sending a clearly in the doghouse Eric Gelinas down a few days after the deadline to where he could have played in the AHL during the Olympic break.  While the staff continues to harp on the mistakes of Gelinas and most of the other young players, somehow the mistakes made by Bryce Salvador continue to escape notice.  Pete’s lucky he’s not coaching in Montreal or Toronto, if he thinks the media here’s being rough on him, the media there would have called him out long ago for his double-standard treatment of the vets compared to the kids.

After Sunday’s blowout loss in Yankee Stadium I had a great (irrational?) fear that it would be a loss that could send our season spiraling out of control, much like blowing a game on Opening Night in 2010 sent our fragile confidence level after a bad second half and playoffs the previous season careening off a cliff.  Especially with the Blues looming on the schedule Tuesday, I figured a trip to St. Louis wouldn’t be a happy one for us after our fluke blowout win over them last week.  As it turned out though, the 3-0 loss was the least of our concerns after that game as cracks have started turning up everywhere in the good ship lollipop that was previously the Devils’ locker room.

One flashpoint is – predictably – Martin Brodeur‘s recent lack of playing time, which is causing the legend a Brett Favre-type angst, despite the fact his play compared to Cory Schnieder‘s play really hasn’t merited more starts this month than he’s gotten.  However, the level to which Brodeur has taken his frustrations the last seventy-two hours is alarming, to the point where he openly wondered about asking for a trade when talking with beat writers this week.

“It’s within the team’s rights to try and make themselves better. The fact is, I have the luxury to decide what I want to do. I hope if he (Lamoriello) is able to help the team, he’ll ask, regardless of what it is. It’s definitely something that is possible.”

“I’m open to anything,” Brodeur told me. “I just want to play. So, like I said in Toronto, if there’s a better situation for me, I’ll take it. If it’s here or somewhere else, it doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t think so unless in the next three weeks it goes worse than (it is),” Brodeur said of whether he’d ask for a trade. “We’ll see. But I don’t think I will ask.”

While to a certain extent it almost seems as if Marty’s thinking out loud here (what does he mean by it getting worse, the team’s situation in the standings or his own playing time?), it’s unseemly for him to be popping off when he’s not playing well and the team’s in a desperate fight to remain in the playoff hunt, and complaining that he’s not used to being a backup and going long stretches without playing.  If he wants to play next season that’s his business and ultimately it might be best for both team and player to move on.  However if he thinks teams are going to beat down his door to have a declining 41-year old legend play 60 games he needs a reality check.  His save percentages from 2006-2010 were still elite-level (.922, .920, .916 and .916) but his save percentages in the last four years have dipped dramatically (.903, .908, .901 and .899) with the .908 and a great playoff performance coming two years ago on the best team the Devils have had in a decade.

Yes, there’s something to be said for loyalty to a guy who in the prime of his career left millions on the table and has given us high-quality goaltending for two decades, and it’s a very tricky thing trying to make Cory the #1 while not appearing to shove Marty out the door…but does that loyalty have to come at the expense of this year’s team on the ice, or potentially compromise re-signing Schnieder this offseason?  Not to mention his teammates can’t be thrilled that he leaves them out to dry in the media by pointing out deflections and mistakes that were made in front of him when his own play’s deteriorated, whereas Cory blames everything on himself practically to a fault.  I don’t want this to turn into a bash Marty post, obviously when the day comes he’s no longer a Devil we’ll all raise a glass and toast the good times, and again when he has his number retired and again when he goes into the Hall of Fame.  Time always marches on though, and time waits for nobody – whatever your name is or accomplishments are.

It’s not as if Marty’s the only Devil to voice public frustrations this week either.  Before Sunday’s game, fellow forty-something legend Jaromir Jagr strongly endorsed having Jacob Josefson play wing on his line after Pete DeBoer finally restored the young Swede to the lineup against the Caps last Friday and vowed to ‘do the maximum’ to keep him on the line.

“I thought he was one of the best players on the ice,” Jagr said. “He didn’t have much ice time, but every time he was on the ice he creates plays.”

“Our line didn’t play very much,” Jagr said. “Hopefully, we can get better and better every game. He’s a good player. People don’t give him enough credit. He’s a lot better than people think.”

Now, who pray tell would he be talking about when he says Josefson isn’t ‘getting enough credit’?  It couldn’t be our esteemed coaching staff who caps his icetime at nine minutes a night most games, plays him sparingly and with pluggers most of the time when he does play, could it?  Hmmm. For the record, I haven’t always been a big believer in Josefson either but to hear such a strong recommendation from Jagr made me smile and gave me hope we might actually get something out of the former first-rounder, if he was actually given a fair chance this time.  So what happened Sunday?  Another sub-ten minute game where he was removed from the line after one lousy period followed by another benching tonight.  Never has GM Lou Lamoriello‘s ‘status quo’ meme seemed more depressingly true.

Both Jagr and Patrik Elias expressed frustration with the constant line-shifting in recent days, with Elias also taking certain unnamed teammates to task for being selfish and trying to do everything themselves.  Perhaps one of Elias’s targets was Eric Gelinas, who’s caused no fewer than three two-on-ones the other way by ill-timed pinches in the last two games alone. While you can’t help but like Gelinas’s offensive talent, it would be nice if he at least tried to play defense once in a while. Apparently he went to the Sheldon Souray school of hockey though, where Souray just wanted to use his big slapshot and occasionally lay a hit on someone when he was within range. Gelinas is going down that same path, and he’s gotten his own ‘benching’ tonight, being the seventh D as DeBoer yet again goes with the 11-7 split.  And you can live with a Souray type, problem is the Devils have another offensive D that’s suspect in his own end in Marek Zidlicky and a defensive D that’s been struggling mightily lately in captain Bryce Salvador.

Of course Pete won’t bench his precious vets, especially team mascot Stephen Gionta who is now playing on the second scoring line between Elias and Damien Brunner.  He won’t play Josefson or Andrei Loiktionov on the fourth line because they’re ill-suited for the role but he will put Gionta in a role he’s ill-suited for as a scoring center, and most likely double-shift him to boot at times since once again we’re only playing three centers.  And god forbid we bench fellow CBGB member Steve Bernier who has immunity from benching in spite of his -15 on the season, compared to Loiktionov’s +1.  And yet Loiktionov’s the one that gets razzed for bad defense.

Pete’s head-scratching lineup decisions have been there all year but the public carping and frustration clearly evident in the closing minutes on Tuesday night is something else.  In spite of all the losing the last couple years, the team’s largely stayed united until recently.  Time is running out and the team knows it, as well as Pete who sounded like a beaten man in Tuesday’s postgame.  This two-game stretch in Dallas tonight and Nashville tomorrow is vital to the team’s chances of staying alive in the playoff hunt, but not only that you have to believe jobs are on the line starting with Pete’s.  When has a Lamoriello team missed the playoffs two straight years?  Never, and that’s in 27 years of GM’ing.  Right now it looks increasingly likely that’ll happen for the first time this year and unconscionably Lou hasn’t made a move yet either to add a scoring winger, shed a defenseman or just do something, anything to shake things up.  The old Lou who fired coaches in first place would never have stood for half this nonsense.  With five vital games before the Olympic break and seven before the trade deadline, this organization needs to take a long, hard look at itself in the mirror and soon.

Cory Schneider gets game’s first star in 2-1 win over Caps

In sports you always want to head into big games playing well.  While the Devils’ 2-1 win last night over an Alex Ovechkin-less Caps team wasn’t artistic by any stretch, it did put a bow on the Devils’ recent 5-1-2 surge heading into tomorrow afternoon’s matinee at Yankee Stadium against the Rangers.  Whether it was looking ahead to the Sunday game, looking past a Caps team without its marquee player, or just a general letdown after their seven-goal outburst on Tuesday, the Devils were certainly sloppy and unopportunistic at times.  However, goaltending proved to be the difference as Cory Schneider was a rock in net, making 31 saves and only allowing Jason Chimera‘s third-period deflection to get past him – while at the other end Michael Neuvirth allowed Stephen Gionta‘s slapshot to squirt through him at 4:57 in the first period. Neuvirth settled in after that, but that one bad goal ultimately proved decisive in a matchup between two of the East’s ten bubble teams currently bunched within seven points of each other for the final five playoff spots.

In fairness to Neuvirth, coach Adam Oates hasn’t settled on one goalie for most of the season, using minor league callup Phillip Grubauer as his number one for a solid month while Braden Holtby struggled and Neuvirth was hurt earlier in the season.  Ironically it seems while the Caps’ goaltending is getting more unsettled, the Devils’ is becoming more stabilized with Schnieder continuing his recent roll during an eight-game stretch with a GAA of 1.09 and a save percentage of .961.  Coach Pete DeBoer admitted a certain level of conflict over who gets tomorrow’s key start.  Most signs still point to Martin Brodeur getting the game for what he’s meant to the Devils over the last two decades but from a purely unsentimental perspective you could understand if DeBoer chooses to go the other way considering the Devils are still on the outside looking in of the bubble at the moment.  A regulation win tomorrow would put them above the Rangers on percentage points though (since the Devils have played a game less but would have the same number of points), so clearly this game’s much bigger even than two rivals playing an outdoor game in front of the country on NBC.  For his part, Schnieder understands the dilemma:

It’s a special game and Marty has been a big part of this franchise. He’s gotten a lot of wins for us this year. Whether he (DeBoer) picks him or me, I don’t think it changes the way we feel about it. We both trust each other and respect the way we’re playing. If he chooses me, it’s great, but this is a game that would probably mean a lot to Marty, having never played an outdoor game in his career.

As much as I want to see Cory continue to get a chance to take the puck and run with it for the rest of the season, I still wouldn’t want to see anyone other than Marty lead the team out tomorrow.  I’d understand it if DeBoer took the purely macro point of view that we need the game so play Cory while he’s hot, but sometimes there are reasons for exceptions.  While it’s not the biggest regular season game the Devils have ever played from a purely hockey-related perspective (that honor will probably always go to John MacLean‘s OT winner in 1988 that put the Devils in the playoffs for the first time), it most certainly is going to be the regular season game that gets the most attention.  And while the Rangers will have played three outdoor games as a franchise by the end of next week, this will probably be the Devils’ only chance at an outdoor game for a long time.  Or at least I’ve been telling myself that to prod myself into going tomorrow, despite the forecasts that seem to be getting colder by the day as Schnieder himself wryly observed in his on-ice interview last night after getting the game’s first star.

It’s probably not an accident that our lineup is also getting more stabilized during this stretch too with the joint returns from injury by Patrik Elias and Damien Brunner, though the Devils did finally send Reid Boucher down and promoted leading Albany scorer Joe Whitney to the parent club for the first time.  Whitney wasn’t really noticeable in his nine minutes, which isn’t a good thing when you’re trying to make an impression.  Well okay he was noticeable considering he makes the Giontas look tall, but that’s about it.  For better or worse our defensive core seems to have stabilized too with a resurgent Eric Gelinas re-claiming the sixth defense spot from Jon Merrill, now a healthy scratch the last two games.  Adam Larsson it appears is stuck in Albany until after the Olympic break and presumably after GM Lou Lamoriello can make a move to unclog the logjam of defensemen, soon to include a recovering Peter Harrold as well. Predicting what the Devils will do in terms of roster moves is usually an exercise in futility but probably when Harrold is fully healthy, Merrill will be sent down to play over the break which would be the right thing for him and the team.  He didn’t look terribly out of place during his time but he certainly wasn’t a finished product either (the same could be said of Boucher up front).

Our special teams have certainly been much better then last year.  Restoring Gelinas to the lineup’s helped our power play maintain a top ten ranking though putting Brunner on the point has been an underrated move the last few games as well.  Brunner, as it turns out played the point a lot in Detroit and Switzerland so unlike most of our forwards, he’s comfortable there.  Yet it was the other power play unit who excelled early in the second period last night, creating our second goal at 1:45 with a nice tic-tac-toe play from Travis Zajac and Jaromir Jagr to Adam Henrique, a play that must have made former Devils assistant Oates wince, since after all we have returned to a read and react playmaking style similar to his own power play which he ran here for two seasons.  Despite some hairy moments – particularly in the second period where we allowed a two-on-none (no that’s not a misprint) and another breakaway, Schnieder stood tall only allowing Devil-killer Chimera’s goal in the third period which put the noose around our neck the rest of the night with a one-goal lead.  Fortunately the Caps couldn’t kick out the platform and we got a stay of execution in spite of a tense final minute where both teams used their timeouts but it was the Devils who prevailed despite Ryane Clowe hitting the post on an empty-net chance.

I don’t really want to look back on last night’s game anyway.  Now that it’s here I’m starting to look forward to tomorrow, especially since MSG’s broadcasting the outdoor practice at noon as an appetizer before tomorrow’s main course.  In fact I’m looking forward to the NHL’s three outdoor games over the next week as a whole though tonight’s Ducks-Kings showdown in Dodger Stadium will be more of a odd curiosity than anything else to see how they can keep the ice cold considering the 80 degree weather in LA.  Part of me wishes we could have THAT kind of outdoor game lol…but last night was just as cold as Sunday will supposedly be and I didn’t really feel cold walking to the car except for my face and my hands, the latter of which will be rectified by my winter gloves tomorrow, the former I’ll have to try and get out to buy a ski mask today assuming it doesn’t snow too bad later.

You hope from a purely TV perspective the game tomorrow gets some of the viewership the NFL would normally get on Sundays considering this is the only weekend since September there isn’t any real football to watch, though it’s having trouble selling out – part of the reason I’m sure we’re not getting another game – although this isn’t all the Devils’ fault despite calling it a sellout prematurely and holding back too many tickets to the winter game trying to entice people to buy season seats (in the meantime people who wanted to go just jumped the gun and bought on the secondary market and now there’s nobody making plans to go at this late date), or Devil fans’ fault, since it’s not like our fanbase is anywhere near the Bronx anyway.  It normally takes me forty minutes to drive to and from Newark, it’ll take like two hours to get to and from Yankee Stadium via mass transit.  Plus Ranger fans get two of these games in a week and already had their Winter Classic in Philly a couple years ago as well, so the demand isn’t there from their perspective either.

Clearly the NHL overdid it this year trying to keep all the local teams happy, though personally it probably would have been cool to have this initial game at Yankee Stadium followed by Rangers/Isles at Citi Field, since there’s no way the Wednesday night game’s coming anywhere close to a sellout in the 50000+ seat cathedral anyway plus at least you’re tapping into the Isles’ fanbase more in Queens.  At least from the other side of it, they were able to give an outdoor game to a lot of teams that probably wouldn’t get it under ‘normal’ circumstances, although curiously Minnesota’s still waiting for its outdoor classic.

What makes tomorrow more fun besides the rivalry itself is the meaning it has for both teams.  A month and a half ago it looked as if this might be a Knicks-Nets type matchup of two bad teams who probably aren’t going to make the playoffs but at least the local hockey teams have all surged since then, making the outdoor games themselves more meaningful.  Really, that’s what these games are about in the end when you take away the freezing cold, the novelty (though it’ll be nice) and attention, in the end what matters most is it’s a big four-point game that could swing the playoff race.  Either fanbase could well look back on tomorrow’s game as the one that kept its team out of the playoffs – though Devil fans will probably look back more on the 0-8 shootout record, but I digress.  With the Rangers having lost two in a row and the Devils facing a tough three-game in four night midwest/south trip, the two points are imperative.  Especially if you can keep the other team from gaining one, making it a four-point swing instead of a two-point swing.