The New Jersey Devils are being exposed as a young and immature team. While they made changes in the offseason to make it tougher to play against and to strengthen positions of need, the Devils still need to learn how to win in this league. New head coach Sheldon Keefe is seeing this firsthand, especially during this tough stretch.
It was another tough loss for the Devils Thursday night at Prudential Center. As documented after the first game of the year, the Devils must learn to win games on home ice. While the team started to change that trend during stretches in November and December, since the holiday break, the Devils have not been the same team.
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As a matter of fact, in the loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday, the Devils were exposed for being too one-dimensional. As Keefe told the media after the game, if the players don’t follow the game and stick to the system, these are the types of results they will get.
“They’re with the top teams in the league, and they make it hard to get through the neutral zone. So that was a real theme for us,” Sheldon Keefe said. “Right from this morning through to tonight, and we did not deal with that well. So it’s a struggle to get there. When we did get through, the key was to be direct, get it to the net, and take advantage of your opportunities to get it there, but we didn’t do so. So you don’t follow the plan, go and execute playing against as good a team as they are, that’s what you get.”
This has been the Devils’ theme all season. While Sheldon Keefe is a good coach and the right fit for the Devils’ style of play, these players know only one way to play. Everything has to be a stretch pass out of the zone through the middle of the ice and catch teams using their speed on the rush. The Devils can’t just be a rush team. While that is when they are at their best, good teams, championship teams know how to stop it.
The one thing you thought was gone under Sheldon Keefe was the snowball effect. But that has crept back into their game, especially during this stretch. The Devils are 7-9-3 over their last 19 games coming out of the holiday break. The Devils have given away too many points to bad teams during this losing stretch. This includes losses to the Philadelphia Flyers, Ottawa Senators, San Jose Sharks, Buffalo Sabres, and Anaheim Ducks. Not to mention, they lost to teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers, and most recently, the Golden Knights.
Even in the losses to Philadelphia and Ottawa, those teams exposed the Devils neutral zone problem. Once you take away the middle of the ice, the Devils don’t know what to do. It is like they are immune to adapting their game. However, in the losses to Toronto and Florida, they played well and lost in the extra period. But they were still exposed in overtime.
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However, if you want to play against those top teams, you can’t make mistakes like the Devils do. That is why Sheldon Keefe is frustrated with his players right now.
“They have to learn to grow. You have to learn to play in these games. It’s a real team. It’s a Stanley Cup champion team,” Keefe said. “And you have to adapt your game. You have to find a way.”
As previously, the Devils can’t let the little things snowball. Against Vegas and, most recently, against Buffalo, the players let things spiral out of control. Even though the Devils made these games close, the damage was already done. He channelled his inner Larry Robinson when he addressed
“It’s a weird goal on the first one. We got an on-man rush. We failed to execute, and every player on the ice thought the puck was out of play, except for the guy who ended up scoring. But that can’t be enough to just completely derail the game,” Keefe continued. “Yes, stay with it. That’s what good teams do. We’ve got to grow and adapt. We want to play with these types of teams. Want to play with the best teams and want to play in the playoffs? You have to figure these things out. So it’s not anything to do with caring; it’s about growing and adapting. So that’s really what it’s about for me, especially when you’re missing people.”
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But it is not just Keefe that sees there is a problem. Veteran forward Stefan Noesen, who played on a Carolina Hurricanes team that went to the Eastern Conference Final in 2023, understands what it takes to win. You could see he was frustrated and disappointed with the effort.
“That’s a playoff team. That’s the bar, that’s the standard,” Noesen said. “We had times where we were OK enough, but OK is not good enough. Hopefully, we can learn from this and understand that this is what it takes to win. At some point, we’re going to have to figure this out.”
Noesen talked about caring and playing for the guy next to you in the room. It is understanding what it takes to win and being a playoff team.
Right now, the Devils look more like the team that missed the playoffs last year than the one that made it to Round 2 of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Until the players decide that the coach’s way is the right way, then they are not going to have success, and the tune after the game will be the same one as last year.
