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Five observations from New Jersey vs Philadelphia:
1. The Devils no-showed in the 1st period
I don't know if the Devils thought they were going out for a morning skate or what the deal was but they looked absolutely awful in the 1st period. On the road against a rival team shooting up the standings, they knew they'd be in for a fight and they looked completely disinterested. The Devils were really sloppy with the puck and they handed out odd-man rushes to Flyers players like candy on Halloween.
At 5v5, the Flyers won the high-danger chance battle 9-0 in the 1st period. For perspective, the Devils only allowed 10+ high-danger chances at 5v5 over the course of an ENTIRE GAME 11 times in 44 games. They almost hit that plateau in one period.
That was one of their worst 20 minute segments of the season and they paid the price for it. Honestly, they were probably lucky to only be down 3-0.
2. They couldn't break through the Flyers defense
Led by Sean Couturier up front, and the Ivan Provorov - Shayne Gostisbehere pairing on defense, the Flyers put forth a dominant defensive effort.
The Devils had a heck of a time navigating their way through the neutral zone and any time they were able to get passed the Flyers' forwards, it seemed like Provorov was in perfect position waiting to attack the puck carrier and kill the play then and there. In particular, he completely shutdown a couple Taylor Hall rushes that looked promising.
The Devils simply couldn't get the puck into dangerous areas and that showed on the heat map. Compare their 5v5 shot locations to Philadelphia's and tell me they deserved to score a goal in that game state.
3. Ken Appleby gave them a chance
The biggest positive from this game was, without a doubt, the play of Ken Appleby.
You'd be hard pressed to put him into a worse situation – down 3-0 on the road vs a rival – for his first NHL appearance and he handled it quite well.
About a minute after coming into the game he made a flurry of saves stopping three quality shots in quick succession and that was just a taste of what was to come.
The Devils were better over the final 40 minutes but Appleby still faced his share of shots and he locked things down to give the Devils an opportunity to try and comeback.
They couldn't – it's hard to score without generating chances – but Appleby did his part.
4. Pavel Zacha getting the PK minutes he deserves
Since entering the league, Zacha has been the best shot and chance suppressor on the roster while killing penalties.
I recently wrote I'd like to see him get more time down a man to see if there's something to the numbers and that's exactly what has happened.
His usage has gone up and yesterday he actually led all forwards in penalty kill ice time with 4:13. Travis Zajac (3:09) was the only other forward who played more than three minutes in that state.
Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.
5. Jesper Bratt needs to shoot more
Bratt low-key has a good shot and gets a lot of zip on it given his small stature so I'd like to see him use it more.
You don't want him to change his game – what he's doing is clearly working – but I think there are times where he passes up a good shot to force a pass that maybe isn't there and it ends up doing more harm than good.
I'm not saying he needs to channel his inner Alex Ovechkin and bomb one-timers from all over the ice, but he should probably be generating shots at a higher clip than the likes of Brian Boyle, Brian Gibbons, Steve Santini, and Ben Lovejoy.
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