The word on the street was the Devils “need a good response.”
Let’s talk about responses. Pre-game, Bryce Salvador released an interesting recounting of all of the “response games” this season. Truly an incredible run of absolute duds every time they’ve come off a challenging loss. Spoiler Alert, they haven’t bounced back very well this season.
I’ve become the Joker.
Im tired of “getting good chances” and “outshooting them.” I know the broadcast team has to put a happy face on most things, but man it must be hard to spin zone some of this. Has this team quit? Were they just never that good? To a man they look lost and disinterested. I think here at AATJ, we have thoroughly covered off what should probably happen, because this time, for real this time, something has to give right?
1st Period
The first was more of the same. Some actual decent play. several grade-A chances: Bratt, Brown, Grits, Nemo, Nico, Luke. Nothing fell, and the goalless streak hits 6 periods. Karlsson scored for the Pens on a rush play and put a nice short side snipe over Jake Allen’s shoulder, and it’s 1-0 them. The best chance for the Devils was on a clean breakaway for Bratt who probably wouldn’t even score on soccer net these days.
2nd Period
Again – some more chances, and drew a powerplay. Surely this will turn the offense around. Plot twist, it didn’t and just as Dewar was coming out of the box he was hit with a beautiful stretch pass for a breakaway and he scored pretty easily 5-hole. 2-0 them.
And then the sag happened. This has become a consistent pattern with this team – just mental weakness, as the Penguins hemmed the Devils in for a good 10 minutes of straight D-zone time. They Rattled off 12 straight shots after that power play and hit 2 posts, and I don’t think we even crossed the red line.
at 17:16 Timo went to the box where he was joined shortly after by Connor Brown at 17:38. With just a few ticks under a minute left to go, we hopped in a Time Machine for a pretty Karlsson-Crosby-Malkin PP goal.
They’ve now been outscored 14-0 over the last 6 periods.
3rd Period
Well Hallelujah, a goal! An honest to god goal! Nice back and forth between Dougie and Luke, who ripped a one timer from up top. The broke a stretch of nearly 8 periods of scoreless hockey – 115 minutes without a goal.
Didn’t matter though, scoring one is enough of a challenge, we weren’t getting more.
What an absolute embarrassing game, embarrassing season. Failure to Launch.
Some Scattered Thoughts
Some random players that would lead our team in goals:
Josh Doan
Emil Heineman
Bobby McMann
Oliver Kapanen
Blake Coleman
Alex Tuch
Troy Terry
Owen Tippet
Anton Lundell
Jordan Eberle
Drake Bathersron
Aliaksai Protas
Zach Werenski
Bryan Rust
Leo Carlsson
Trevor Zegras
Gabe Villardi
Tyler Bertuzzi
Jakob Chychrun
Dmitri Voronkov
I’m tired guys. How about you?
LGD