Following a couple disastrous showings against Montreal and St. Louis, the New Jersey Devils had a chance to redeem themselves last night in New York.
They were taking on a Rangers team that had been decimated by injuries. While still possessing a solid forward core, it was certainly less potent without the likes of Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Buchnevich, Rick Nash and the recently acquired Matt Puempel.
Still, like most teams, the Rangers had no problem controlling the play and scoring in bunches as they outshot the Devils by 12 in their convincing 5-0 win.
While these kinds of games happen to every team on occasion, this is becoming a regular occurrence for the Devils.
Over their last 13 games, they have allowed three or more goals all but once. In those 13 games, they were outshot all but twice and one of the times they weren't outshot, they tied the opposition.
On aggregate, the Devils have been out-shot by 132 (11 per game) and out-chanced by 97 (8.08 per game) over their last 12 contests.
Given how poorly they've played on the defensive side of things, it should come as no surprise the Devils have allowed 51 goals (3.92 per game) over their last 13.
Things won't get any easier moving forward as nine of their 10 remaining games this month are against playoff teams. The one exception, Nashville, is two points out and playing much better of late following a rough start to the year. They also dominated the Devils the last time the two sides met but allowed four goals on their final five shots and walked away with just a point as a result.
New Jersey's season is heading downhill fast -- they are now seven points out of a playoff spot and have played more games than the two Wild Card teams they're chasing -- and it looks like things can still get much worse in the coming weeks.
The Devils really need to step up to the plate and find a solution quick. If they don't, their season will be all but over before the turn of the calendar.
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