After a one-game hiatus, the New Jersey Devils' defensive woes returned Friday night against the St. Louis Blues.
The Devils showed little resistance defensively allowing 31 shots, 27 scoring chances and four goals in the loss.
A few notes:
1) The Devils have allowed three goals or more in 11 of their last 12 games. They are turning the puck over frequently, their positioning isn't good, they routinely screen their own goaltender, they can't box anyone out and look completely out of sorts when they don't have the puck.
When Cory Schneider was getting lit up many were quick to point fingers at him and suggest Keith Kinkaid should get more starts. Well, the same thing is happening to him as well.
Either both guys woke up a few weeks ago and completely forgot how to play hockey or the defense is playing so poorly that it's pretty near impossible to allow two or less. I'm going with the latter.
2) Many have called for GM Ray Shero to shake things up and go pay for a top-4 blueliner. I really don't think there's a move to be made right now for a couple reasons:
a) 15 of 16 teams in the Eastern Conference are at NHL .500 or better. The lone exception, Buffalo, is still only six points out of the playoffs. There's no reason to sell.
In the Western Conference, only Arizona and Colorado are more than three points out of a playoff spot. It is publicly known that both sides are looking for a top-4 defenseman.
Where is a top-4 guy going to come from right now? Contending teams don't want to give them away, and there aren't really any teams bottoming out.
b) The Devils have allowed 3+ goals in 11 of 12 games. Other teams know this just as well as Devils fans do. When a team is struggling mightily and working from a position of weakness in negotiations they rarely win a trade. Teams aren't going to line up to give away a top-4 defenseman in the best of times. When teams know you are in desperate need of one that stands even truer. Any team Shero calls probably asks for the likes of Pavel Zacha right off the hop.
As Elliotte Friedman often says, GMs will throw anvils, not life lines, at you.
The Devils are going to have to find a way to limit the damage from within because a trade would probably do more harm than good in the long haul.
3) As bleak as things seem in a 4-1 loss, there were some positives last night. The biggest of which was probably the play of the Beau Bennett - Sergey Kalinin - Devante Smith-Pelly line.
With that trio on the ice at 5v5 the Devils out-chanced the Blues 10-0. 10-0! They were flying around the ice and generating quality looks almost every shift.
4) Another positive: Taylor Hall. He made something out of nothing to create New Jersey's lone goal and also was involved physically by landing a couple solid hits throughout.
Hall has eight points in his last four games and 12 in his last eight. He is playing some fantastic hockey.
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