The Devils have lost four in a row and don’t look nearly as sharp as they did in November and December. A slump is getting dangerously close to a free fall.
Look, let’s not go into full panic mode yet. Three in a row to inferior teams is never good, regardless of where the games are played. That being said, it is not uncommon for Eastern Conference teams to struggle during long west coast trips. However, the Devils haven’t earned a point in the standings since December 27th and today is January 4th. That would be a complete disaster, if the Devils hadn’t built up a large distance in the standings between themselves and the bottom five teams in the Metro. All things considered, the Devils still need to start winning some games again.
Things like this cannot happen. Erik Haula and Luke Hughes both totally failed here. Luke Hughes turned the puck over in his own zone when he had two options. Hughes could have either gotten the puck out to the neutral zone, which he tried to do and did not succeed. The Sharks were bearing down on him with some speed so getting the puck out right by them is not a very high percentage play. His other option was to take the puck and retreat behind his own net with possession of the puck. Had Luke done this, it would have given him more time to find an open teammate to break out, or find space for himself to use his own elite skating ability to break out himself. That’s a long way of saying, Luke absolutely cannot turn the puck over inside the blue line there. Once the puck is turned over, Erik Haula failed to do his job. Luke stays with his man, and the puck carrier, into the corner. Meanwhile, Kovalenko of the Sharks cuts to the middle of the ice. Erik Haula, the center, loses his man and leaves him wide open in the middle of the ice. Can’t do that and expect to win. Bad play all around put the Devils behind early, which seems to be becoming a trend again, similar to the debacle that was last season.
Nice power play goal for the Devils first goal of the game. But, it was in the second period and the first PPG in a while. That illustrates two big issues the Devils have had in this recent downturn. Slow starts and lack of success on the power play. The Devils have not scored a first period goal since their last win, which came on December 27th. We saw it last year, playing from behind every night is not a sustainable way to have success in the NHL. Neither is having a dead power play. Over the last four games, the Devils are 1/12 on the power play. Small sample size sure, but still a bad trend. The Devils have too much talent to be converting on just 8.3% of the power play chances. On the season, the Devils are still second in the NHL with a 28.9% success rate on the power play. I don’t think it’s much of a coincidence that losses are piling up as the power play under performs.
Look, there is never a bad time to be second in your division (third in points percentage), like the Devils are right now. Even with these four straight losses, the Devils are still on pace for 99 points. With 40 games to go, there is more than plenty of time to get rolling again, and there might even be some more slumps between now and the playoffs too . I still have faith in this team. I still view the Devils as one of the top five contenders for the Stanley Cup. The Devils are struggling right now, but just about every team goes through a rough patch or two throughout the year. This team has more than enough talent to go on a serious run this year, but damn this is frustrating right now. Stop the slide now. Beat Seattle on Monday, then come back to the east coast and beat up on the last place team in the division yet again on Thursday. Don’t let things get out of control.
