0-1 to start a playoff series never looks great. Hockey is a game of resilience.
In playoff hockey, what can seem like a certainty at one moment can be gone in a flash.
Given the New Jersey Devils’ historical struggles against the Carolina Hurricanes and the injuries the team is dealing with, very few — even among Devils fans — seem to expect the Devils to come out on top of this first-round series. The 4-1 loss yesterday only adds to the dismay within the fanbase and the confidence most people have in the Hurricanes. The Devils are outclassed, outmatched, outskilled, outcoached. So (some) people would think after one game.
Some older Devils, such as Erik Haula, Tomas Tatar, and Ondrej Palat, may be playing in their final destinations. There is no guarantee they wear another team’s jersey after this one. Even Jacob Markstrom, Jake Allen, and Brenden Dillon may fall into that category. For Haula, Markstrom, Dillon, and Tatar (who I imagine will play game 2), this would be their first Stanley Cup. For Markstrom, this is only his third playoff appearance — and he’s never been eliminated in a first round.
There are also guys on the fringes, like Daniel Sprong, Justin Dowling, and Nate Bastian. Right or wrong, if this playoff series doesn’t go well, who is to say whether they will be able to carve out starting roles on an NHL team again? Depending on Cody Glass’s injury, Justin Dowling may need to play on the third line in Game 2. If Daniel Sprong gets to play next game (his line did not have a good Game 1), he is going to need to score the first goal, maybe the first two or three goals of his Devils career. And if Nate Bastian plays, he needs to remember how to shoot the puck hard enough for it to make it to the net. It’s such a teetering line between having an NHL role and being on the outside, looking in.
While the Devils have some clear, obvious producers in Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Timo Meier, and Stefan Noesen (who has fought long and hard to get back to where he is now), alongside their well-established blueliners in Hamilton, Pesce, Kovacevic, Dillon, and Dumoulin — they also have some up-and-comers. How good are Luke Hughes, Dawson Mercer, Cody Glass, and Paul Cotter going to be?
Luke Hughes’s benefit in this series is that he has the maneuverability to hold onto the puck “too long” on the breakout and still not turn it over. His downside is that his frequent flips to the neutral zone aren’t being tracked down by his forwards, even though his forwards don’t give very close support on the breakout. Another is that, of the four scoring chances he had, and the seven shot attempts, he only got rubber on goal twice at five-on-five yesterday.
Dawson Mercer is the one to watch. He put up a team-leading 0.68 individual expected goals in Game 1, though he only got one shot on goal. He had six attempts blocked or go wide of the net. But he was all over the puck in the crease, with two rebound attempts and two created rebounds, according to Natural Stat Trick. He also drew a hooking call, which is quite a feat against Carolina with the amount of stick penalties they tend to get away with. But Dawson doesn’t need to just generate opportunities, he needs to score. He was just one goal off from having a third-straight 20-goal season. Out of the Canes, only four — Jarvis, Aho, Roslovic, and Svechnikov — outscored him in the regular season. Logan Stankoven, the man who scored two on us yesterday, only had 14 in the regular season. What kind of player does Dawson Mercer want to be in this moment?
Cody Glass is a question-mark in Game 2 after being hacked to the ice by Jacob Markstrom in a friendly-fire incident, but if he is on the ice, he needs to be better than in Game 1. His line posted a team-worst 26.67 CF%, was outshot 8-1, and gave up a goal. They generated 0.01 expected goals before Sheldon Keefe finally shook up the lines. Being matched against the Hall-Kotkaniemi-Svechnikov line, Glass needs to play like he is better than those three. This is a guy who was hard-matched against Sidney Crosby a couple weeks ago and looked great doing it. And going against Carolina’s weakest pairing in Shayne Gostisbehere and Sean Walker, he really needed to play better.
Paul Cotter was lined up on Glass’s left side, and he did not bring that kind of playoff hockey he said his game was built for. He had zero shots, zero shot attempts, zero scoring chances, and got hit more than he hit others. His right-side counterpart, Sprong, also had zero shots — and indication that third-line was not built correctly to go against Carolina — but Cotter needs to change his game, too. Carolina is not a team that he can carry the puck against. He’s going to have to dump the puck. He has to win it back below the goal line. He has to pass the puck and wait for it to get back to him. He needs to screen the goaltender. He needs to create chaos around the goal, even when he doesn’t have the puck. That would be him buying into playoff hockey.
Sheldon Keefe needs to change, too. Perhaps he should have recognized the lines needed to be changed about five or ten minutes into the game. Perhaps he should have played Johnny Kovacevic more than 16 minutes, considering he had a team-leading 64.00 CF%, a team-leading 3:1 shot ratio, and a team-leading 78.93 xGF%. When Kovacevic was on the ice, Rod Brind’amour was unable to properly utilize the Staal-Slavin-Burns shutdown trio. Their game became inert, but it becomes a matter of getting Kovacevic onto the ice against them on the road.
Keefe also needs to give the team the freedom to play aggressive hockey from the opening puck drop. Sitting back in a defensive posture, hoping to catch Carolina on a shift where Jacob Slavin isn’t playing free safety on the forecheck, is not a winning strategy. Most of the Devils on this team play their best hockey by engaging in hard-nosed play. That’s Noesen, Meier, Kovacevic, Dillon, Cotter, and Bastian. Let them forecheck. Let them throw hits. That’s the only way the team is going to be able to open up shots for Hischier, Bratt, Hamilton, Mercer, Sprong, Haula, and Hughes.
As long as the Hurricanes can chase and hound the playmakers and shooters, the Devils will lose. However, they have the personnel to throw Carolina off their game, giving everyone a role to shine in. But it’s not going to get done by rolling a top-heavy forward group, and it’s not going to happen by playing defense at five-on-five like it’s a penalty kill.
It’s not a series until someone wins on the road.
And for some Devils, this could be it — either for their career, their time in New Jersey, or both. A change in attitude, and a change in approach may be necessary to get that road win.