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For the fourth time in as many games, the New Jersey Devils left the ice without a win, as they fell to the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in overtime.
Though it was a one goal game and the Devils managed to get a point, the score certainly doesn't tell the tale.
For almost the entire game the Canucks carried play, and as a result they walk away with two points.
Daniel Sedin, Alex Edler and Jason Garrison scored for Vancouver while Roberto Luongo made 21 stops in the win. Patrik Elias and Jaromir Jagr scored for the Devils.
Some thoughts:
- Though the Devils once had a 2-0 lead, they did not deserve to win. For that matter, I'd argue they were lucky to get a point. That was their worst outing of the season as the majority of the game was spent in their own zone, and they were unable to sustain any offensive pressure. Had Cory Schneider not made several highlight reel saves to keep them in it, the Devils would have been blown out of the rink.
- The Devils are a very good possession team and, up until last night, they won or were very close to winning that battle in every game they have played. Against Vancouver, it wasn't even close. Five players on the Devils had a positive shot attempt differential. Everyone else was a negative in that regard and many players weren't even close to 50%. The numbers were as ugly as the team looked on the ice.
- One positive, besides Schneider, was the play of the Dainius Zubrus - Patrik Elias - Jaromir Jagr line. Due to their lack of foot speed, you'd expect that line to suffer but they actually dominated play throughout the game. Each of them finished as 65% possession players or higher and in Elias' case, he was close to 75%. That line also produced offensively as they accounted for the only two goals the Devils scored.
- Ryane Clowe, Andrei Loktionov and Damien Brunner were awful. They weren't generating anything offensively and quite frankly they all played quite poor in their own zone. They won't play well every night, but considering how they played leading up to the game against Vancouver, much more was expected.
- One big reason the Canucks won? Matchups. John Tortorella was able to get the Sedin twins out against Peter Harrold and Anton Volchenkov pretty frequently and, suffice to say, it didn't end well. That has been the worst defence pairing for the Devils this year and going up against elite players like the Sedins, what we saw was expected.
- Through four games, Brunner, Jagr, Elias and Michael Ryder all have at least two goals. They are also the only Devils that have scored.
- Seven of the Devils nine goals this year have been scored by newcomers. That's 78%.
- The Devils have lost four games. Three have been one-goal games. Two were decided in a skills competition. They have points in three consecutive games including in each of their first two on a tough road trip through Western Canada. There's no need to panic. 78 games remain.
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