Last night Ilya Bryzgalov shutout the New Jersey Devils in Philadelphia. It was Bryzgalov's fourth shutout over his past five starts. Here are some notes on last night's game, the Devils scoring depth and more.
- Last night's Devils / Flyers game was a perfect example of one team just wanting it more. Unfortunately for New Jersey, it was their opponents that wanted it more. The Flyers beat the Devils at their own game last night, and with ease. The Devils, who are considered one of the hardest working teams in the NHL, lost almost every puck battle in all three periods.
They also missed every opportunity the Flyers provided them with. Philadelphia was undoubtedly the better team last night and they got what they deserved: two points.
- Having won the previous four games before last night, including a win against Philadelphia, you could almost sense the loss before the game was played. Everybody knew the Flyers would come out with a purpose, and they did just that. The Devils were just not up to the challenge last night, simply put.
- New Jersey has an opportunity tomorrow at home to get back on track against a Colorado Avalanche team that is playing tonight. My guess is that they will.
- Marek Zidlicky won't get much credit for his game last night because he was -2 (one goal was with an empty-net), but I thought he played pretty well. He had two blocked shots and seven hits in just over 21 minutes of ice.
- The Devils top line will need to be much better tomorrow against the Avalanche if they want to get back in the win column. Every player, and line, is entitled to a bad game once in a while so they have the benefit of the doubt there, but they definitely need to respond with a better outing. Five shots and a combined -5 rating between Ilya Kovalchuk, Zach Parise and Adam Henrique is not going to get it done.
- Jacob Josefson with another good outing. No points, but he was even and looked very good on the penalty kill with Kovalchuk. Josefson played almost three minutes on the PK which shows that Pete DeBoer has a lot of confidence in him to go out there and get the job done.
- Martin Brodeur was by far the best Devil on the ice last night. He came up with big stop after big stop, but unfortunately for him the Devils didn't help him out with any goal support whatsoever. Not only did New Jersey not score, but they created a very small amount of offense in terms of shots. They had 17.
- My last note on last night's game will be on the Devils powerplay. It was just ugly. Kovalchuk put it best during a post-game interview when he said the puck was moving and that's about it. He hit the nail on the head. There was very little rotation from the players and almost no shots were taken with the man advantage. Factor that in with the Flyers easily outworking the Devils and you have an 0 for 5 powerplay.
- The Devils have a legitimate chance to have four thirty goal scorers this season. Kovalchuk has already hit that mark. Parise and David Clarkson are both at 28 and Patrik Elias is at 24 with 12 games remaining. While Elias is not as likely to hit that mark as the others, I don't think that plateau is by any means out of reach; especially if he can pot an empty netter or two.
- The Devils have 12 games remaining, as I just said, and are only 15 points shy of 100 on the season. That means the Devils have to go 7-4-1 to reach that mark. That's certainly doable.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow me on twitter @ToddCordell.
TheHockeyGuys.net
Email: [email protected]
New Jersey Devils Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»