B’s blanked by woeful Devils
Offense sputters again
The New Jersey Devils apparently have the Bruins’ number this year.
It doesn’t matter who is in net for the Devils, or how they’ve been doing lately. The Bruins simply have their hands full with this team.
Backup goalie Scott Wedgewood stopped all 40 Boston shots, with a few of his best saves coming in the final minute when the B’s had the goalie pulled for the extra skater, to lift the Devils to a 1-0 victory at the Garden on Sunday.
It was just the Devils’ second win in their last 10 games, but third in four tries over the B’s this year. Wedgewood, meanwhile, had come into the game with a 1-3-1 record and .901 save percentage.
“I think a lot of pucks hit (Wedgewood), and I think he made some good saves, obviously, especially in the third period,” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “With the Devils this year, we just haven’t scored. … For whatever reason, we haven’t had a lot of puck luck against them. We need a little more will and the goaltending’s been good against. At the end of the day, we’ve defended well against them, we just haven’t done the part on offense.”
Shortly after the Bruins could not break the ice with a third period power play, the Devils finally snapped the scoreless stalemate with 4:37 left in regulation. P.K. Subban shoveled a pass into a pile in front of Tuukka Rask. The loose puck squirted out to Pavel Zacha and his shot somehow deflected off Kyle Palmieri past Rask for the 1-0 lead. It stood up as the winner.
The B’s did not play horribly, but when you don’t put a single goal behind any netminder, it’s hard to feel all that good about yourselves. And you certainly don’t want to lose to a team that has lost five straight.
Despite getting 40 shots on net, the game was a dud in comparison to the victory over the Washington Capitals on Friday.
“That was an emotional game and we played fairly well in it. But it’s our job to get up and come ready to play, especially in this one against a team that, yeah, they’re not up there in the standings but they’ve had our number this year,” said Charlie Coyle. “There’s been a few games against them that, for some reason or another, we’re just not ready from the start and we have to be. We have to play like something big is on the line. And that’s the case.
There’s two points up for grabs each night and we have to make sure we come ready to go from puck drop and play like we did the other night. It’s not always going to be pretty. It’s not always going to be perfect, but we have to find a way and do the right things.”
Another thing to be concerned about beyond the squandering of the two points is the way Rask left the ice. He had taken some contact late in the game and when he skated off, he appeared to have some discomfort in his back. There was no update on him after the game. He was originally supposed to speak to reporters, but Charlie Coyle stepped in for him.
The usually reliable top line was again hyper-active. David Pastrnak fired 10 shots on net, Patrice Bergeron had five and Brad Marchand a couple. No dice.
It would have been a good night for some secondary scoring to kick in, but that was not to be. Craig Smith has just one goal in his last 13 games. But perhaps of the biggest concern is the state of Jake DeBrusk’s game. He has just one goal in 16 games this season and, though he started slowly in the past, that’s not good enough for a player of his caliber.
“I don’t think there’s a magic answer or we would have used it,” said Cassidy when asked what needed to be done to get him going.
Cassidy talked about what DeBrusk could do to break out of his rut and used as an example Coyle’s two-goal game against the Rangers a week ago, when he beat one defenseman one-on-one and fired the puck into the net.
“He’s not the same stature as Charlie physically, but he’s got some good foot speed that he can beat the D with and free himself up for a shot, kind of like (Pastrnak) does,” said Cassidy. “There’s a little bit of that that’s missing in Jake’s game where he could create some turnovers off the forecheck and some second-effort around pucks, strip some pucks, a little bit like (Marchand) does. He’s got some of the attributes as those two. He hasn’t been in the league as long as those two. But we’ve seen it, his foot speed is second to nobody’s. We’ve seen him have a good release. We’ve seen him have second effort on pucks and get inside. He just has to put it together every night.”
With the East Division standings looking like any one of the top five could be the odd man out for the the playoffs, securing the two points against a struggling team like the Devils on Sunday would have been nice.
And it won’t get any easier. On Tuesday, they travel to Long Island, where they’ve lost all three games they’ve played this year. They’ll have to dig a little deeper than they did on Sunday.