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A few notes from New Jersey vs Columbus

1) I was really surprised, and impressed, by the Devils' start. The Blue Jackets are a really good team and they talked about coming out firing following what they considered to be a very poor showing in Columbus. That didn't happen. The Devils skated their asses off and took it to the Blue Jackets in the opening frame. They were really sharp, generated more than their fair share of high-danger chances, and left the ice up two as a result. Everything fell apart after that. The 2nd period was mostly even (chance-wise) but the Devils handed the Blue Jackets a couple on a silver platter and they took advantage. In the 3rd period, it wasn't even close. Artemi Panarin went beast mode and had the Blue Jackets looking like true Stanley Cup contenders while the Devils seemingly couldn't get out of their own way. You never want to make too much of one game, but I think last night showed the Devils still have a lot of work to do before they join the upper-tier in the East.

2) Andy Greene has made a career of being the steady, safe, reliable defender. He was anything but last night as he was routinely caught running around in the defensive zone and some of his outlets and decisions with the puck were questionable to say the least. It was just one of those nights where one bad play led to another and everything snowballed. It's also a reminder age is starting to catch up to him and he's not the player he was a few years ago.

3) I'll always have a soft spot for Travis Zajac but it's getting awfully hard to defend his play. I know he didn't have training camp or preseason games to get into the swing of things, but he's been bad and borderline awful more nights than not. He looks *really* slow and is rushing his decision making to try and keep up, which is only making matters worse. Through 11 games he has just one point and he's finished with a negative scoring chance differential in eight of those 11. He is coming off a nice bounce-back season year but this season has been a disaster thus far.

4) On a positive note, Sami Vatanen is settling in nicely. He was one of the few Devils not making glaring mistakes last night and he was rewarded with more than 26 minutes of ice. I thought he handled it well, too. He looked steady, in control, and even had a couple nice rushes with the puck. When all was said and done he finished with a +2 high-danger chance differential, which is impressive given he was run into the ground by the coaching staff and played all those minutes against a very good team.

5) Is any player on the wrong end of more missed calls than Taylor Hall? This isn't an isolated incident because of the breakaway thing. It just seems like every game he uses his speed to put defenders into a bad situation where they have to hold/slash/trip Hall and they get bailed out by the officials letting things go.

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