Failure to Clear
How man times do the Devils fail to clear the puck, turning the puck over, and allow the Rangers to score? I’m boggled by the number of times the puck is along the half boards, and instead of finding neutral ice it’s held along the blue line, or pushed toward center instead of out of the zone. With so much momentum and so many chances to put this one away, the Devils just let themselves get buried. No need to get on the bikes, or work on the power play, just take out the squirt coaching book and work on breaking the puck out.
For each sign of hope, there’s a sign of disaster. Elias has two goals but is minus three on the night. Mottau scores a nice goal after a complete dangle in from the point, but minutes later another failure to clear results in Staal being able to put the puck right past him and Brodeur.
Madden winning the face off past Elias into his own net kind of sums up tonight. And they credited the goal to Gomez, because maybe he sniffed the puck during the face off. I’m not giving up hope, as I witnessed, first-hand, a 3-1 series deficit turn into a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in May 2000, but anything short of perfect hockey now ends the season. There’s no more room for failure - failure to hit the net, failure to pick up checking assignments, failure to get the puck out of the zone, failure to stay out of the penalty box, failure to avoid embarassment.