Battle Of Hudson

In something that was expected for a while but happened fairly quickly once discussions formally got underway, the NHL decided to re-align and completely change its playoff format effective next season. Instead of six divisions, the NHL will now have four ‘conferences’ of 7-8 teams. Each conference/division/whatever will have four playoff teams square off against each other in the first two rounds, sort of like the format of the ’80’s and early ’90’s where division teams squared off until the Conference Finals. With the difference being now instead of two teams from the same conference playing off to go to the Stanley Cup Finals, you’ll have four teams that get reseeded based on record.

Here are the new divisions (the hell with the conference designation), which are loosely based on geography – therefore my names are loosely based on intent:

Battle Division (7) – Devils, Rangers, Islanders, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, Carolina
Northwest Division (8) – LA, San Jose, Anaheim, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado, Phoenix
Central Division (8) – Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, Columbus, Minnesota, Winnipeg, Dallas
North/South Division (7) – Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Tampa Bay

Of course you’ll notice some goofy pairings with this format, putting Florida and Tampa Bay (southern teams) with a bunch of Northeastern teams is one. Dallas is certainly going to be piling up the frequent flyer miles in its division to every place except Nashville, though they kind of do that now anyway. My Battle and Northwest divisions are the closest to being right geographically, the Northwest being the most based in reality of the four.

A potential flashpoint is that two divisions have eight teams and two have seven, which makes it unfair to the eight-team divisions having to beat out an extra team for the playoffs since now playoff berths are solely based on finishing top four in your division. Currently, you only have to finish in the top eight of your conference (assuming all three division winners fall in that designation) and each conference had fifteen teams. However, the NHL didn’t rule out future expansion which would put eight teams in all divisions. I don’t really know where else they’re going to expand to, especially if Phoenix winds up going to Quebec and screwing up the realignment before it starts.

As much as I like the fact every team gets to play each other in a home-and-home during the regular season now, it comes at the cost of conference rivalries. Now the only true rivalries can exist in divisions, where you’ll play around six times against each team, as opposed to twice against every other team. No longer will we get to see teams like Boston, Montreal, Toronto and Buffalo four times a year, and playoff matchups against such teams will be much rarer indeed. Would classic non-division conference matchups like Devils-Leafs in the early 2000’s or Devils-Senators in 2003 happen now?

Essentially this format enhances rivalries that already existed for the most part (though now it tries to force some new ones as well), at the cost of others that could be cultivated from playing four times a year and in potential playoff series. Devils-Sabres was a classic first-round series in 1994, Rangers-Sabres was also pretty good a few years back. Heck, when the Isles actually made the playoffs before the lockout they had a barn-burner of a series with the Leafs. The fact that all the NY-NJ teams only get one home-and-home with the Sabres is too bad. Not to mention cutting down the Rangers’ matchups with fellow Original Six members Montreal, Boston and Toronto.

Now, as for the actual Battle division…if I’ve seen one silly notion in the last 24 hours it’s that this division is somehow unfair to us, given that ‘giants’ like Pittsburgh, Washington and the Flyers are in it, leaving one playoff spot to fight for between the Devils, Rangers, Isles and Canes (who actually will fit in this division since they have legit rivalries with us and a couple other teams here). I say that’s nonsense, first of all that may be the case this year and next year, but what about five years from now? Five years ago, the Pens and Caps were bottom-feeders even with shiny new rookies Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.

Plus if you look at every division there are obstacles to overcome. Would it really be any easier to beat out the Sharks, Kings and Canucks for a playoff spot? How about trying to get past Detroit, Chicago and Nashville? Boston, Buffalo and an improving Leafs team won’t be a picnic either. Not to mention ours is one of the two divisions that only have seven teams, as opposed to eight. Any Devil or Ranger fan that feels this division is too tough a challenge, well that’s just too bad and a defeatist atitude. We have to improve our team to be able to face those top clubs one way or another.

I’m sure Derek will have more to chime in on this subject (particuarly on the politics of why this happened), as it certainly isn’t going to make the purists happy.

All I heard from Devils fans for most of the season when I expressed skepticism about the team was ‘look at how hard their schedule’s been!’ (and I heard the same thing about the Rangers in reverse, for that matter – that they had such an easy early schedule and were due a fall). Supposedly the schedule was turning easy for us and harder for the Rangers and the two teams were about to start heading in opposite directions, according to the Kool-Aid drinkers among us.

Sometimes, you just can’t look at numbers or projections though. You have to trust what you’re seeing on the ice. What I’ve seen out of the Rangers is a team that’s winning without its supposed top defenseman and as Derek pointed out in his last post, showed more character than guys like Joe Thornton thought they had. For all the whining from Devils fans about how we’ve missed Travis Zajac, the Rangers haven’t had to overcome Marc Staal‘s absence?

Yeah I know, we missed Ilya Kovalchuk for a few games – big deal, we went 3-2 in those games and Kovalchuk’s been on the ice for a whopping thirteen of our last seventeen goals given up. We missed Martin Brodeur for several games? Big deal, Johan Hedberg‘s having a much better year, quite honestly. Jacob Josefson‘s been out? Again, big deal…we’ve actually upgraded there with Adam Henrique performing on both ends of the rink and getting himself into the Calder discussion (if only as someone who’s going to be on the ballot ‘after’ Ryan Nugent-Hopkins). Astonishingly, Henrique looked like he was going to be buried in the minors until Josefson went down.

Long story short, injuries are not the cause of this recent spiral downward from the Devils. When I pointed out that few of our early wins came via ‘real hockey’, I was scoffed at. Yes the shootout’s part of the game now in the regular season but it sure isn’t going to help you in the first sixty-five minutes. The fact of the matter is while the Devils’ record now says they’re 12-12-1 in the modern NHL, under a non-shootout system they’d be 7-12-6. Meaning the shootout’s masked a lot of our ills in the first 60-65 minutes of games, at least until recently. And in a league where now you need to be at least ten games or so over NHL .500 to make the playoffs, flat-lining at .500 after twenty-five games isn’t exactly giving us a cushion to build off of.

About the only good news on the horizon is coach Pete DeBoer saying that Zajac will play in a game before Christmas. Granted, our crack medical team isn’t always the most accurate with projections on a player’s return but if you believe the coach, Zajac will be back sometime in the next nine games since that’s how many we have before the holiday. Although Zajac can be a little overrated by Devils fans at times because of our utter lack of depth at the center position the last few years, he will improve the team in more ways than one.

With him back, maybe we can finally end the silliness of having Kovy play RW (though the Zach Parise-Henrique-Kovy line has actually put up points in recent games, they’ve given up that and more besides on the defensive end, mostly due to the idiosyncrascies of Kovy). Not to mention he gives us another option on the point of the power play besides Kovy, or Patrik Elias – who have both been a comedy of errors at the point, as well as Elias has played otherwise this year. And having Zajac around might bring out the best in the captain too, though Zach’s play has improved recently he’s still a ways off from being the player he was two years ago.

Plus Zajac will improve our hideously bad faceoff percentage – something coach Adam Oates was supposed to do for all the centers. Then again Oates was supposed to improve the power play too…and they’re worse than ever now. It’s not bad enough they’re not scoring, but they’re actively giving up goals on the power play now. To the tune of seven in the last fifteen games, something depressing like that. We’ve given up more shorthanded goals than power play goals at this point, or at least it seems that way to me which is absolutely mind-boggling.

You wonder why we can’t just put Kovy on the left boards where he’ll excel and put two defensemen on the point? When you have no forwards capable of playing the point defensively then why try to fit a square peg in a round hole? I know the likes of Andy Greene, Mark Fayne and Henrik Tallinder aren’t going to scare anyone but at least they and rookie Adam Larsson can move the puck around the point and pick their spots to shoot. Kovy can shoot his one-timers from the left board or do whatever, at least he won’t wet his pants on the point if he’s up front.

Last night, those ‘normal’ power play issues got compounded by having Moose in net. Granted, Moose has been great when he’s actually stayed in the crease but he also handles the puck like a grenade, and in a critical sequence late in the second period last night that cost us. With the Devils leading 2-1 after lucking into a 5-on-3 PP goal by Elias (off a defenseman’s arm, and after Moose had flopped to draw a bogus call on Andrew Ladd), Moose had to handle a dump in and shot the puck right past Kovy to an open Bryan Little on the point, leading to an open one-timer by Alex Burmistrov that truth be told broke the Devils’ back. To be even before a lengthy 5-on-3 and still be even after it, after giving up another demoralizing shorthanded goal…I knew we weren’t winning last night after that.

It’s not as if the power play’s been our only problem. Defensively, we’ve given up 72 goals in 25 games, including 14 of them in our last three. Yes, Kovy’s turnovers and the power play of doom have contributed to that total but overall this defense just has not done the job this year. You’ll have to live with Larsson’s idiosyncrascies right now, he’s 18 and has a world of potential. However, issues like putting stay-at-home d-men Bryce Salvador and Anton Volchenkov together (and frequently giving Volchenkov the least amount of icetime among our defensemen), or Tallinder’s usual slow start and Greene’s usual inconsistency are other issues we have to deal with. Especially since all of the above other than Salvador are signed beyond next year.

Offensively things have gotten a little better lately, but the Devils still only have one line capable of scoring. Before, it was the Elias-Petr Sykora-Danius Zubrus line. Now it’s the Parise-Henrique-Kovy line. In the modern NHL though, you really need three lines that are capable of scoring, not one. And even having one score isn’t a great comfort when they’re going to give up more goals than they score, which is remarkable. And in goal, there’s about a twenty-ton elephant in the room right now. Just look at these numbers:

Brodeur 13 starts, 5-7 record, 3.31 GAA, .880 save percentage
Hedberg 12 starts, 7-5-1 record, 2.24 GAA, .920 save percentage, 2 SHO

Yes, one’s the legend going to the Hall of Fame and the other’s merely the folk hero but you couldn’t tell which is which by looking at their numbers. Since both Brodeur and Moose are 39, age isn’t a real factor although usage might be – Marty’s logged a lot more minutes over his career than Moose – and maybe it’s catching up with him at this stage in his career. Marty certainly has been much slower to heal from injuries than he was five years ago.

You do have to wonder how long DeBoer can continue to give Marty the majority of starts when healthy, if that disparity continues. What’s even more mind-boggling is the team seems to play better in front of Moose. Look at the flat team performances in Colorado and the first period of Minnesota, then look at the second and third periods of the Wild game and the game last night and tell me that was the same team? Other than Kovy, anyway since he’s a turnover machine no matter who’s in net. Even last night, though it wasn’t as egregious as some of his gaffes in recent games, he did have a needless turnover that led to the Jets getting pressure in our zone for about a minute before Mark Stuart finally scored the eventual winning goal.

So basically, everything’s an issue right now including coaching – as DeBoer continues to stick Kovy at RW and refuses to make him accountable for his goofups, and the power play continues to be a disaster of epic proportions. Not that I want to see another coach get canned, even though at this young stage of the NHL season there’ve already been four firings. Imagine that, four coach firings and not one of them is Devils-related – yet. I don’t think PDB will get an axe this year even if we miss the playoffs again, then again I didn’t think Johnny MacLean would get the axe last year…but things just got so historically bad eventually Lou Lamoriello had no choice. Plus there’s no Jacques Lemaire to sweet-talk into another return, unless Lou really does have a spell on the guy.

I guess there’s little to do at this point except hope things start getting better Tuesday in Toronto, which won’t be easy considering the hot start Brian Burke‘s remodeled team has gotten off to, even without number one goalie James Reimer.

If things looked bad after Saturday’s loss to the Isles where star winger Ilya Kovalchuk got booed heavily in the third period after committing a critical turnover, they’ve gotten a hundred times worse after the last two games in Colorado and Minnesota. Their 6-1 beatdown Wednesday isn’t even worth discussing, hell I didn’t watch half of the game anyway. It was practically over when it started with the Devils down 3-0 after one and Martin Brodeur giving up six goals in a complete game for the first time in umpteen years. Kovy – though he scored the game’s only goal – was also a -4 after being on for no fewer than five of the six goals against and in the penalty box for the other.

Even that game didn’t annoy me as much as tonight’s in Minnesota against the first place(?!) Wild. While I felt there wasn’t much Marty could do about the goals on Wednesday, he looked like he was in full ‘I’m too old for this ****’ mode tonight, especially after Kovy (who else?) watched the puck hop over his stick and lead to a breakaway goal by Dany Heatley – exactly twenty seconds after Zach Parise had opened the scoring by tipping home an Andy Greene shot at 2:54. Kovy was again involved in a negative way on the Wild’s next goal, as he fell down leading to a Kyle Brodziak goal. At this point, Marty looked like he had it with everyone and everything and allowed a soft goal to Casey Wellman at 8:17, leading to a very rare mid-period hook after allowing three goals on four shots.

As has been the case so often this season (and I’m struggling to rationalize why), the team picked up its play 100% with Hedberg in net – with one exception – and amazingly Kovy made a positive contribution to the game at 13:59, when he beat Nicklas Backstrom with a wrister off an assist from Parise, to pull the Devils to within one. Perhaps the most critical thing that happened in this game was when Backstrom had to leave after the first period ostensibly due to injury, and Josh Harding replaced him. Harding was spectacular in the last two periods, foiling chance after chance as the Devils largely took play to the Wild, outshooting them 22-10.

Although the Devils didn’t give up many chances in the final two periods, Kovy was again front and center on two of them…one being an errant pass that led to a breakaway allowed at the end of the second period where Moose made a terrific save on Brodziak. The second one, we wouldn’t be as lucky on. With the team facing a four-on-four situation late, coach Pete DeBoer opted for three forwards and one defenseman, with Kovy playing the defenseman. You could smell the second-guessing all the way in Jersey and sure enough, Kovy tried to keep a puck in and missed, leading to another Brodziak breakaway and this time he would score, sealing the contest at 16:24 of the third.

While Kovy and Marty deserve most of the blame for what’s happened the last few games, the coach needs to share in some of that too, both from his insistence at using Kovy on the point for the power play and at RW in five-on-five. True, Kovy and Zach finally looked like they showed some signs of chemistry tonight but clearly Kovy’s still uncomfortable and admitted he was hoping the ‘experimenting’ would be done with after last season (referring to then-coach John MacLean putting him at RW). There’s no good reason to me that you need to have Parise and Kovy on the same line. If DeBoer was the first coach to try putting a square peg into a round hole, that would be bad enough but being the second one to do it just makes it even more insane. Clearly the switch is getting in Kovy’s head and he’s making even more high-risk no-reward choices on the ice.

At some point the player needs to be held accountable, but the coach also needs to recognize what he has in the player both talentwise and mentally. And right now, Kovy’s a mental midget that’s dragging this team into the abyss much like his detractors predicted.

Before getting to anything else and the nonsense that was the third period of this afternoon’s game, I have to say this home-and-home with the Isles certainly lived up to the billing, at least in the respect that both games were competitive down to the final buzzer and each team had numerous chances to score. Not only did the teams split their weekend series, but there was controversy at the end of this afternoon’s game to boot. Basically these two games had just about everything you could want, including chippiness – most of it from the Isles’ John Tavares who really acted like a punk this weekend and got unpunished for it other than a chintzy fine for his two-handed slash on Zach Parise in yesterday’s game.

With the number of scoring chances in each game – particularly this afternoon’s contest – the fact that the scores were only 1-0 and 3-2 were a credit to Isles goalie Al Montoya (thrown right into a back-to-back off of injury) and Devils goalies Martin Brodeur and Johan Hedberg. Even though Hedberg threw a shutout yesterday, in many respects Brodeur was just as spectacular today – stopping at least two or three breakaways, including a staggering double save towards the end of the second period on Michael Grabner and Kyle Okposo with his team trailing 2-1 at the time. After stopping Grabner on yet another breakaway, he had the presence of mind to throw up the glove just in time to stone Okposo trying to swat the rebound in.

That sequence seemed to give the Devils momentum going into the third period and when Ilya Kovalchuk sprung Adam Henrique on a breakaway, the super rookie again converted to tie the game at two. With a power play minutes later, it seemed as if the Devils were on their way to completing the comeback and getting the two points. Instead, a bizarre sequence began with Kovalchuk swatting the puck back into his own end, then after recovering it wound up trying to do his usual fancy-pants stickhandling right in front of Brodeur. Of course, he got stripped and gave up an easy breakaway chance for Grabner – who wouldn’t miss this time, giving the Isles their third lead of the game.

Even with his two assists earlier in the game (though it wasn’t like he made a particularly stirring play on either), that sequence finally proved enough for those in attendance, who booed the $100 million man mercilessly the rest of the game. Kovy even got booed during intermission when one of those taped messages popped up wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and he got the Scott Gomez treatment with repeated boos when he had the puck on his stick. To this I say good. I’m not an advocate of booing your own players unless it’s a case of a lack of effort but Kovy’s repeated lah-de-dah giveaways that have led to shorthanded goals against tell me he’s not thinking, and therefore not trying. The experiment of him playing RW on a line with Henrique and Parise needs to end now as well. Kovy refuses to play off the right side, frequently drifting left and therefore shadowing Zach and blunting both their effectiveness. It’s telling that Henrique’s been by far the best player on that line.

Kovy compounded matters by acting like a baby later on in the game when Tavares again took a swipe at him and knocked him down in the corner, and again didn’t get called (when, exactly did Tavares become as teflon as Sid Crosby?) Kovy just sat in the corner and wiggled around like a soccer player. Eventually he drew an unsportsmanlike minor on himself, again hurting the team’s chances to win with just minutes remaining by forcing them to have to kill another penalty. And again, that’s not being a team player and boos only multiplied. It is amazing that even a schlep like Brian Rolston never got booed by Devils fans but Kovy drove everyone – including me – to the point of no return this afternoon.

Even with Kovy’s best efforts to give the game away, and some other people’s careless turnovers as well, the Devils still found themselves within one with five seconds remaining and a faceoff to the right of Montoya. Patrik Elias lost the faceoff but the puck somehow bounced right to Danius Zubrus by the boards, and Zubie threw it in front towards Parise, who whacked the puck in with barely two seconds left, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Except that Toronto decided to get into the act (again). After allowing an Isles goal in the second period despite contact with Brodeur and the net coming off its moorings – with a ‘review’ that lasted approximately thirty seconds – they took a couple of minutes then decided they saw enough evidence of a distinct kicking motion that they overturned the goal.

Really it was a dubious call (to put it mildly, since this is a family blog), the only ‘kicking motion’ came when Parise was falling to the ice and he had no way of knowing where the puck is when he is supposed to have kicked at it. You’re supposed to have no doubt when you overturn a call on the ice. I was so annoyed I didn’t even notice the captain’s frustration toward the refs after the play was overturned and when the clock ran down. In some ways I’m glad he went off, maybe it provides the spark for the captain to get going – though his anger was a bit misplaced since it wasn’t the refs who overturned the goal but the men eating donuts in Toronto.

As hideous as that ending was, the fact is the Devils would have gotten at least a point out of the game if not for Kovy’s umpteenth gaffe and this home-and-home confirmed something I’ve feared for most of the season…while the Devils have the best goaltending tandem in the league with Brodeur and Hedberg, they’re a bottom third team in the other two phases (offense and defense). They’re only going to go as far as Marty, Moose and a resurgent Elias can carry them. Not to mention the extra shootout points, that might be necessary just to get us in the playoffs. Unless some other people get going – like the captain and of course, the $100 million man, who’s starting to look like he can’t get it going under any coach besides Jacques Lemaire. Of course it would help if said coaches left him at his natural LW position. Even if that means (gasp!) putting him on the third line, since the Elias-Zubrus-Petr Sykora line is rolling and moving Parise off of LW is just as dubious. If Kovy’s not going to earn his icetime, then at some point we’ve got to take a stand. The fans have started to voice their displeasure, when does the team?