The New Jersey Devils finally picked it up offensively and gave Martin Brodeur some goal support, but once again they left the ice the losing team.
After winning three consecutive games over Pittsburgh, Anaheim and Los Angeles, the Devils have now dropped three straight games - all of which ended in regulation.
It was 4-1 before the Devils woke up, and you're not going to come back from many three-goal deficits when you're struggling to score.
Patrick Dwyer scored the game-winner and was one of four Hurricanes to beat Brodeur while Travis Zajac, Andy Greene and Jaromir Jagr found the net in the loss.
Some notes:
- The Devils played a decent game offensively, but there was certainly room for improvement. Carolina did a great job getting in the shooting lanes and because of that the Devils only got 22 shots on net. When you don't get many shots, it's hard to score goals. They need to be a lot less fancy with the puck and just throw pucks on net.
- Jagr's 10th goal of the season was the 691st of his career, which means he's just one goal behind Steve Yzerman for 8th all-time and three behind Mark Messier for 7th all-time. Even when the Devils are losing, it's fun to watch Jagr play and pick up all these accolades. Seems like every game he plays he's hitting a new milestone.
- I thought Travis Zajac was exceptional last night. He scored, had three shots and won 75% of his faceoffs in the win. He also set up some glorious chances including, but not limited to, his cross-ice feed to Dainius Zubrus that left him wide open at the doorstep. It's also worth noting that almost 70% of the shot attempts when he was on the ice were in favour of the Devils. What makes his performance most impressive is that he played almost all of his 5 vs 5 hockey against either Eric Staal or Jordan Staal.
- Eric Gelinas had another solid day at the office. He played 21:09, which was 2nd among all Devils, and was good at both ends of the rink. He made some nice defensive plays and wasn't at all intimidated to be physical with Eric Staal. For the most part he did a good job of making outlet passes to get out of the zone, too. Offensively, he had an assist and two shots. His low shot total may suggest otherwise but No. 22 was teeing them up relentlessly all night. I recall one shift he had four or five shot attempts alone. Perhaps the rest of the Devils should adopt Gelinas' shoot first mentality.
- Who is No. 17 and what has he done with Michael Ryder? He actually started off the season pretty well scoring four times in his first nine games, but he's been invisible since. I don't know what's wrong with him but he doesn't seem engaged in the game at all. He's not battling for loose pucks, he's not looking for space and yelling for passes, he's sort of just floating around and always seems two or three strides behind the play. It's usually not a good thing if you're known as a goal scorer and people go 10-15 games without noticing you at all.
- Andy Greene is a machine. He had a bit of a miscue in the offensive zone that led to a goal, however, he was pretty steady all night once again. For the most part he was reliable defensively and he recorded a goal and an assist in the loss. Greene now has eight points in his last 10 games.
- Jon Merrill was just two seconds behind Marek Zidlicky for 3rd among Devils defenseman in ice. That means he played more than Pete Harrold. Maybe DeBoer likes what he sees.
- The Devils are next in action Friday night against the 'Canes. They'll need a much better start if they hope to win the game. If I recall correctly, the Devils have fell behind 2-0 in three consecutive games now.
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