·
Game 1: Held without a goal against clichéd Metropolitan
Division favorite, Pittsburgh.
·
Game 2: Home opener. Damien Brunner scores his
first two goals of the season. Devils surrender two leads and have to score
their own equalizer to force overtime. Lose in the shootout to the Islanders
·
Game 3: Sprint out to a 3-0 lead on the Oilers
heading into the 3rd period. Give up 4 straight, come back, force overtime,
fall in the shootout again.
·
Game 4: Score first two goals of the game, hand
lead back to Vancouver by the end of the 2nd period, fall in overtime in Corey
Schneider’s return north of the border.
Needless to say, Devils’ Army is already growing restless.
A year after missing the playoffs and a summer after losing
both Ilya Kovalchuk and David Clarkson, the Devils’ and their fans still held
high expectations.
Sure, the names of Clowe, Ryder and Brunner don’t strike
fear in the mind of defenders quite as well as Kovalchuk, but they play the
game differently than the retired-from-the-NHL-so-he-can-run-back-to-Russia
winger.
Early on, it has been Brunner leading the way with three goals,
and Ryder, Elias and Jagr with a pair each. That’s it. Nothing from Travis
Zajac, nothing from the 2012 playoff hero Adam Henrique, nothing from even the
CBGB line.
The Devils need to not only find a win over the course of
their remaining three road games, but they need to find scoring outside of the aforementioned
four players.
Sure, the “big money” players are the ones traditionally
called upon to contribute the most fire power, but both Zajac and to a more
recent extent, Henrique, are coming off
new deals which rewarded their previous performances, and need to start
contributing on a consistent basis, otherwise the Devils are in trouble
already.
While the offense is struggling early on, the defensive
pairings are leaving much to be desired. 13 goals against over the course of 4
games will not erase the sickening feeling of missing the post season 2 of the
past 3 years. So far, with very few exceptions, the Devils’ defenders are
looking old, slow and confused, a far cry from the way their new defensive
coach, Scott Stevens, played the game, even before his retirement.
After a shaky Devils’ regular season debut against the
Penguins, Schneider gave his team nearly every chance he could to help them
beat Vancouver, but they could only muster the two goals and not effectively
clear his sight lines for the overtime winner.
His counterpart, none other than future Hall of Famer Martin
Brodeur, has looked extremely rough during his two outings thus far, giving up
7 goals and losing both in the shootout. Yes, he cannot score for his
teammates, who apparently have forgotten what the back of the net is during the
shootouts, going 0-for-8, but he also allowed goals on 2 of 3 attempts against
Edmonton.
The Devils had a very good preseason for a team who had yet
another summer of unexpected drama, but they haven’t been able to capture that
success and translate that into the regular season so far.
If they don’t solve their issues now, it could be a very
long winter in Newark
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