The Nightmare Continues

The night started off pretty well for this particular fan.

Tappan to Newark in under 40 minutes.

Inside the arena in less than 5, but my friend and I realized we had forgotten our coats to donate to the Devils’ coat drive. Still though, no big deal.

We both signed up for Score-O, got some decent food for the considerable price [same as last time but the portion seemed much larger], got to our seats which were well worth the $40 price tag on each.

During warm ups, I was selected to be one of the shooters, and thought, wow, tonight is shaping up to be a good night.

That is, until the opening faceoff. 17 seconds later Tomas Holmstrom’s harmless toss on net banked off the post, off Brodeur and into the net. 1-0 Detroit.

Okay, not a big deal, they just need to reset, re-focus and use the remaining 59 minutes 43 seconds to tie it up.

That is until about 90 seconds later, Daniel Cleary broke in on the left side and ripped a shot over Brodeur’s glove hand, off the post, off the crossbar and into the net, 2-0 Detroit.

That was all you needed to know to determine how this one would play out.

Their even strength is atrocious, they continue to play dumb hockey. Players are right, the effort is there, but their brains are not. They aren’t playing smart, team hockey and instead playing on their own not thinking of one another.

The only exception to this atrocity is the power play, where for the first time in a long while, the Devils are finally firing on all cylinders with the man advantage. While they are not scoring on every single one, this is not NHL 2011 after all, they’re nearly 50% over the last 3 games, including 1 for 3 last night.

Something needs to change badly with this team. Be it the coach, be it some player movements [I’m looking at you, Mark Fayne, who should be on his way back to Albany right this second], they need a shakeup in some form immediately.

Oh and for the record, I hit the plastic barrier placed on the mouth of the net on the first shot, missed slightly wide right on the 2nd. There were no winners out of the 4 of us last night. But had the barrier not have been there, we as a group would have outscored the Devils.