Inconsistent Devils still searching for rhythm

NEWARK >> Will the real New Jersey Devils please stand up?

Are they the group that went winless in their first six games? Or are they the team that strung together impressive back-to-back wins against the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks to start to dig out of that hole?

Friday night would seem to indicate they’re the former, at least right now, more so than the latter.

The Devils blew two separate leads en route to a difficult, 5-3 loss at the hands of the Arizona Coyotes, wasting what was inarguably Jack Hughes best game as a pro so far; the first overall pick in the most recent draft turned in the first multi-point game of his career with a one goal, two assist effort.

New Jersey allowed those five goals on just 17 shots, with many of the chances that goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood faced being of the Grade-A variety.

“It’s tough to get in the rhythm of the game and feeling shots and feeling you’re controlling your rebounds and stuff like that when there aren’t any shots, so it is a tough challenge,” Blackwood said. “Those have always been challenging games for me as a goalie. But, they happen. I remember one or two of those last year happened as well. I have to find a way to be better in them.”

He isn’t alone. Turnovers and bad line changes led to the red light behind Blackwood’s net going off far too often, with defensive issues still plaguing a team that has a -14 goal differential that puts them third from the bottom of the league.

“If you look at the overall game, we played a good hockey game,” said head coach John Hynes. “So, you can get into nitpicking here or there, but unfortunately when we made a mistake, it wound up in the back of our net, and I think that was the difference in the game.”

Hynes isn’t necessarily wrong — his team more than doubled Arizona’s shot output, 35-17, and had plenty of Grade-A chances themselves — but the margin of error with his group is so thin, that both those mistakes and the frequency of them simply can’t continue to happen.

“We did a lot of good things tonight, but we also, once again, at critical moments, we made big mistakes,” said captain Andy Greene. “It’s tough when, each time we started to get momentum and started doing a lot of good things, we shot ourselves in the foot. It’s weird when that happens, and that’s on us, we have to make better decisions with the puck with getting it deep, getting it out and also knowing time and score of the game and the situation we’re in.” RANGERS END LOSING STREAK WITH BIG BUFFALO BEATDOWN >>? The Rangers have seemed to have had somewhat of an opposite start to their season than their cross-Hudson River rivals.

Impressive victories in their first two games of the season seemed to justify expectations that their rebuild had been accelerated so much that they could potentially compete for a playoff spot this season, well ahead of schedule. Five straight losses after that seemed to bring everyone back to reality, however.

A big 6-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden seemed to restore some of that hope again, with an unexpected, dominant performance over the

Eastern Conference’s top team at the time always a welcome sight.

“It’s not just the score, but with the game was unfolding in the first period, I thought we did a lot of the things we haven’t been doing for about three weeks,” said head coach David Quinn.

“There was way more puck support, way more pace to our game, way more structure in our game. When you do that, you’re going to have the puck more, sustain some zone time and give yourself an opportunity…it was a step in the right direction, certainly. We need to learn how to manage leads and things of that nature, but since we haven’t had many of them, hopefully we can continue to learn through experience.”

The same can be said for defenseman Tony DeAngelo, the 24-year-old Sewell native, who seems to finally be coming into his own after a difficult first three years between the Coyotes and Rangers. He leads defensemen on the team with four goals, and is tied for third amongst all Blueshirts players with six points, including a goal and an assist in Thursday’s win.

Regarded as an offensefirst defenseman, he’s played with more confidence with the puck as of late, and has found success by jumping into the play.

“That’s my whole game, basically, to be honest with you,” he said. “I’ve got to produce on the offensive side of things, and right now it’s good for the team and good for me to help produce…you’ve got to pick and choose when you want to do that, but when these guys have the puck on their stick, and you pick the right spot, they’re usually going to put it there. So far, in the last couple of games, it’s kind of been going that way.”