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Five takeaways from New Jersey vs San Jose:

1) The Devils were playing in the latter half of a back-to-back vs a rested team and it certainly showed. They couldn't muster any consistent offense and, on top of making San Jose's life easy by taking a barrage of penalties, they also gave up a ton of good looks at 5v5. The Sharks had absolutely no problem generating chances around the net and they were rewarded with three goals.

2) I didn't like the decision to sit Steve Santini. If he's healthy, as was reported, he should have been playing. He's been one of the New Jersey's most steady defensemen in the early going and has actually held his own against top competition when John Hynes has used him in tough matchups at home. I thought he'd be a nice piece to have in the back pocket if Hynes wanted to pivot Severson out of the tough matchups and use him in more favorable situations to generate offense. The 'rest' thing doesn't make much sense to me with Santini a) having low mileage on him and; b) a bye week beginning after the game. Maybe there's more to the story, but I can only comment on what I know.

3) I thought Keith Kinkaid did a nice job between the pipes. Given some of the chances the Devils allowed, it could have been a lot worse than 3-0. He helped the team hang around even though it never really felt like they had a shot because of their inability to generate any offense.

4) It didn't cost them last night -- the penalty kill was really good -- but the Devils *really* need to cut down on the penalties. If they keep taking 5+ a night, it'll cost them a lot of games in the long run.

5) The Devils were once again out-shot, out-chanced, and out-scored with Mirco Mueller on the ice at 5v5. It's still early, obviously, but it's not exactly encouraging the Devils control less than 40%(!!) of the attempts and chances while he's on the ice. No player on the team -- not even Ben Lovejoy -- has numbers that bad.

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