Another Blowout Loss Prevents Devils From Receiving A More Deserving Sendoff From Fans
As the clock wound down on New Jersey’s 6-1 blowout loss to Carolina in Tuesday night’s critical Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, you could hear a smattering of the Prudential Center faithful chanting, “Let’s go Devils!”
Not that I blame anyone who ditched the game early, but it’s still a shame if that ended up being the last time they caught the Devils in action this season. Now down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series, New Jersey needs to find a way to steal a win in Carolina on Thursday to force one more match at The Rock.
That’s going to be a tall order, as Carolina has outclassed the Devils in every phase in their three victories. On Tuesday, the Hurricanes blew the doors open with a whirlwind second period, scoring five times, including four goals in a span of 5:20.
It was the wrong time for New Jersey to play its worst period of the season. They excessively coughed up the puck (the NHL dinged them with 26 giveaways on the night compared to 2 for the Canes—for comparison purposes, Montreal was the league’s worst team during the regular season with an average of 11.5 giveaways per 60 minutes), allowed odd-man rushes galore, and blew coverage assignments. And once again their goaltender, this time Vitek Vanecek, wasn’t good enough to bail them out.
After a strong start, which featured Jack Hughes’ sixth goal of the playoffs just 1:55 into the contest, the Devils got too cute for school, a trait which this young team could overcome during the regular season, but against a grizzled foe like Carolina in this setting, it was bound to result in dire consequences.
The Canes got the ball rolling late in the first period when Luke Hughes, New Jersey’s 19-year old defenseman playing just his fourth NHL game since leaving the University of Michigan at the end of their season to join his brother, prematurely went for a line change after attempting a stretch pass into the neutral zone. Unfortunately, it was intercepted, and Hughes couldn’t get back from the bench area in time to prevent Martin Necas from burying the first of his two consecutive transition goals.
It got ugly in a hurry after Necas’ second goal. Luke Hughes was on the ice for another three goals against while the pair of Dougie Hamilton and Jonas Siegenthaler were bystanders on two other Carolina goals in the frame. I would expect Devils Head Coach Lindy Ruff to make personnel changes on his back end for Game 5, never mind his goaltender (does he dare go with the high ceiling and low floor that is the yet-to-dress Mackenzie Blackwood? It’s anyone’s guess.).
Once the Devils fell behind in the second period, they started to chase the game, putting, as Ruff calls it, excessive risk into their play. In his postgame press conference, he criticized his team (looking at you, Jack Hughes) for “going rogue” instead of skating as five-men units with support. On the flip side, it seemed like off every New Jersey gaffe, the Canes capitalized on the counters.
All six of the Devils losses this postseason have gotten out of hand in this manner, which is the opposite of how the Devils had dealt with deficits all season when they led the league with 26 comeback victories.
Of course, the Stanley Cup Playoffs are not like the regular season. And many of the Devils have had to learn how to navigate the increased speed, physicality, and focused intensity that comes with postseason hockey on the fly. Six of their 18 skaters plus relief goalie Akira Schmid are experiencing their first NHL postseasons of their careers while another four had just the five-game loss to Tampa Bay in 2018 to fall back on. Even Vanecek had all of three career playoff starts under his belt while with Washington.
As such, fans have to give the Devils a little rope here, even though it looks like they are figuratively hanging themselves with it in this series. The reality is that this team is at least a year ahead of schedule after their four previous seasons ended with them finishing no better than seventh in the Metropolitan Division. Coming into the season, merely qualifying for the playoffs would have been deemed a major accomplishment. Instead, their 49-point improvement from last season set a league record for 82-game campaigns.
Many, including me, had them falling to the Rangers in the first round, yet they roared back from dropping the first two games at home to win four of the next five games, including an unforgettable 4-0 domination in Game 7 in front of a raucous crowd at The Rock.
Anything can happen in a playoff hockey game, but it would be tough to bet on the Devils extending this series given the mess that is their goaltending situation. Which is why I was hoping they could have kept Tuesday’s affair within a reasonable margin so they could have been given a more deserving sendoff.