It took all of two and half more weeks and three total posts to begin really questioning my initial principles. You may remember “founding principle #3” in my first post, which promised good vibes and a positive spin to Devils developments.
The Devils 10 games since 2/27/2021 (my last post): 1-7-2.
Also the Devils: try staying positive now, Pat.
Me: (Gulp) Challenge accepted.
I must admit, to those who know me personally or follow me on social media, life has been a bit of a whirlwind over the last two weeks as the result of a fairly significant career move. So in that context, I have been hard pressed by time constraints to intently watch Devils games or read up on the team. As such, expect biweekly renditions of WOTD, rather than weekly updates.
Nonetheless, I am here to recount the recent woes of our beloved Diablos.
As of the moment of this writing, the Devils are up one goal in the third period against the Buffalo Sabres but just two days removed from a truly heartbreaking shootout loss to the NY Islanders on Sunday night. It was a game that epitomized the bad juju that seems to plague a team in the midst of a mighty slump. Case in point: the Devils started overtime with a trio of Pavel Zacha, P.K. Subban, and Jesper Bratt (who replaced Zajac after the 1,000+ game vet won the extra-period opening draw).
The Devils set up and advanced up the ice for what appeared to be an impressive effort from Zacha to gain zone entry. After drawing 66% of the Islanders skaters to him, Zacha dished over to slick-rick Jesper Bratt, who then threatened the high slot before dropping to P.K. for a quick half-slap shot that looked like a perfect snipe to the top right corner, beating Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin over his glove.
Woohoo – the Devils’ finest looking play in weeks culminates in an exciting and dramatic overtime win! P.K. drops to one knee and pumps the crossbow to celly while the boys hop the boards to join the fray in what must have felt like a massive sigh of relief. Thank you, hockey gods.
BUT WAIT. The play is under review.
The zone entry was deemed offsides from Jesper Bratt, the goal was called back, and the Devils went on to lose in the shootout. Here’s what irks me, and like I said, epitomizes the Devils’ recent string of bad luck: not a single camera angle, at least from the MSG broadcast, showed conclusive evidence of Bratt being offsides. Isn’t literally every review in sports construed through that lens? Touchdown reviews, out of bounds reviews, pass interference reviews, goal reviews, etc. The play on the field/ice is harder to overturn without clear evidence. Inconclusive! Is what we always hear when a seemingly BS play stands.
This was just about as inconclusive as I’ve seen in the NHL’s offsides-review era.
Ah, what’re you gonna do. I digress.
So the Devils are 1-7-2 in their last 10. They’re playing the similarly lowly Buffalo Sabres right now. Hey – thank god we aren’t them right?
What is there to make of the recent stretch? Well, let me put forward a two-pronged theory that is neither far-fetched nor all that creative. It’s pretty obvious, in my opinion:
The Devils are exhausted, and there is a very legitimate possibility that guys are feeling after-effects from COVID19. Because of that, the compressed schedule is proving to be an unrelenting gauntlet.
As I noted in my post from 2/27, as many as 19 Devils were on the COVID19 protocol list, and quite a few of them reported having fairly serious symptoms. The team effectively restarted their season after their two week covid-induced hiatus, but this time without a training camp to prepare and coupled with COVID symptoms. Stack on top of that: a ridiculously compressed schedule with no more than 1 day of rest between games for the rest of regular season, in a division touted as the league’s toughest at season start.
What does all of that equal? In this case, a 1-7-2 record for the Devils in their last 10.
It also hasn’t helped that Nico Hischier went down in only his 5th game appearance this season after an ugly bounce from a PK Subban shot hit him in the face.
Meanwhile, Hughes, Smith, Wood, Blackwood, and the rest of the Devils early season stars have really cooled off. But enough of the negative.
What about the good stuff?
Well, Pavel Zacha is playing the best hockey of his NHL career. He leads the team with 17 points. He has filled in admirably as a top two center for the team for much of this season with Nico out. He looks damn confident, and he’s shooting the puck well. Throughout much of his young NHL career he always struck me as being too passive, like he was questioning whether or not he really belonged.
That has changed big time this year. I don’t know if it is a Lindy Ruff induced result, but Zacha is playing with the look of a guy who now knows he belongs. What a win that would be for this franchise if he can continue to provide legitimate offense, all while maintaining the defensive prowess that kept him in the lineup in previous seasons.
Hey, we’ve got to at least convince ourselves there’s more to come for #37. After all, no one needs a reminder of who was still available at the #6 pick in that 2015 draft.
AnyWHO… who else has been good? Another pair of rookies have trended upwards recently.
Janne Kuokkanen, who the Devils picked up at the trade deadline last year from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for Sami Vatanen, rides a four game goal streak into tonight’s matchup with the Sabres. He’s got a point tonight, which brings him to 12 on the season in 21 games played. He has good size, and he looks good flanking TZ19 on that 3rd line. He’s another guy that the Devils need to continue to develop. At 22 years old, and a former 2nd round pick, there is still plenty to like about Kuokkanen.
Speaking of that 3rd line, Zajac’s other rookie winger has gathered some steam as well. Yegor Sharangovich has another goal tonight, which gives him goals in back to back games and 3 goals in his last 5 games.
Sharangovich was touted as the diamond in the rough of this year’s training camp, after finding the back of the net early and often in the KHL before the start of the NHL season. That carried over to the Devils pre-season and he slotted into the top line on opening night with Jack Hughes and Kyle Palmieri.
He cooled off a bit after that dramatic OT goal in the 2nd game of the season against the Bruins, but he’s got a great release, and he’s showing that he can get it off at the NHL level. He’s another guy who has been trusted by Ruff & Co. on the penalty kill and in all scenarios.
If “second tier” young guys like Sharangovich and Kuokkanen can prove to the Devils brass they can be contributors at the NHL level, the club finds itself in a better position than the recent games would indicate. The team has high-end forward prospects in the pipeline in Alexander Holtz, Dawson Mercer, and Nolan Foote. If those three become top-9 forwards for the club in the next 2-3 seasons, we’re looking at a fairly deep group of forwards.
Therein lies one of the problems that has plagued this team for multiple years now. Young forwards who show flashes of potential, but then settle in as middle or bottom six forwards for the club. You just can’t build a contender like that. You need a couple of these guys to pan out to be 20-30 goal scoring wingers to play on the top two lines with our supposed franchise cornerstones Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier.
There’s one guy in particular who fits that description all too well. Jesper Bratt. Jesper had a delayed start to this season after contract and passport issues, but when he debuted in his first game with linemates Jack Hughes and Andreas Johnsson, he looked like a world beater. That line, which thankfully has been reunited in recent games, was far and away our most dominant offensive trio at the time. And Bratt looked like a real catalyst. In his first couple of games he was seemingly creating multiple chances every time he took the ice.
But here we sit, with 20 games under his belt including tonight’s game with Buffalo, and Bratter has a whopping 1 goal and 11 points. At least he’s even on the year. But aside from a few games where he was in the doghouse, Bratt has been amongst the top six forwards every night this season, playing with guys like Hughes, Hischier, Zacha, and Palmieri. You’ve got to be able to create more if you’re logging those minutes.
He’s got three straight 30-35 point seasons, and sure, he’s only 22 years old. There’s room to grow and I’m all about patience. By NO means am I clamoring to offload the talented Swede.
But hell if I don’t speak for all Devils fans when I say: can we just have one (young) winger not named Kyle Palmieri break out and look like a reliable 20-30 goal, 50-60 point guy?!
Ah, right… We traded Blake Coleman last year. So who’s the next one?
I could go on about a lot of guys, but I’ll end this one on a positive.
Mackenzie Blackwood looked good tonight. Oh yeah, by this point the Devils have beaten the Sabres, which you know already because you’re reading this in the future. I watched his post-game interview with Erika Wachter. This bull was sporting a 1970’s fully-grown lip sweater. He was confident and oozed that swag of a tier 1 goaltender. He said as much.
We’ve got three in a row coming up against Pittsburgh. Let’s see if the Devils can bring a bit more jump to their game and build off the last two. Let’s see if Bratt, Hughes, Johnsson, Palmieri and maybe even Gusev can show up as the big guns we thought they’d be coming into the season.
Let’s go Devils. Drop a comment below and don’t forget to subscribe at the link on the homepage.
Talk to y’all soon.
Word Of The Devil 