Inconsistency and Nervousness
Face it: The Devils look nervous out there. Tuesday night’s fiasco against the Penguins was the first game I’ve watched in about two weeks, and I was sorry that I did. When you’re listening to the radio, you hear about the puck being “spirited out” or “scaled back up” and you can at least form a mental picture of an attempt at a breakout. What I saw were backhand passes with no receiver in sight, a weak forecheck, and guys that seemed to be frozen in terms of what to do next. If you’re going to commit to play behind the net (especially when your defensive partner is behind the goal line on the other side), then you had better commit to getting to the puck, or shouldering the guy off the puck, first. Not letting a one-handed pass turn into an easy goal, and the beginning of the end.
When don’t you commit? When you’re afraid that a strong action is going to result in getting reamed, getting mixed up in a different line, or a mistake that costs the team. Nervousness. Anxiety. But without commitment, the Devils offense has looked like a Pee Wee level drill in feeding the puck to the points for a budding slapshot to develop. The lack of shots in the Montreal game was indicative of a general lack of direction, and I can only attribute that to nervousness. But being nervous with the puck is making the whole team useless with the puck. And possibly the root cause of the game to game inconsistency. One night Oduya has four points, the next he’s playing the four corners offense on the ice and going slow when Penguins glide by. Help.
Maybe being in third place in the Atlantic is a good thing. Rather than worrying about who is accelerating from behind (worry = nerves) the black-n-redmen can think about playing catchup in the standings. If Philly wins tonight, the Devils are back to where they were mid-November, looking way up at what should always, geographically and mentally, be down from here. While there’s no truth to the rumor that I want Pennsylvania to annex southern New Jersey, taking Flyers, Phillies and Eagles fans with them, someone over on Mulberry Street should be a big man and get pissed off that the 856 and 609 area codes are laughing at us. C’mon guys, our mascot is from an historical South Jersey family gone horribly wrong (and not just for rooting for the Flyers, but evil mid-18th century stuff), we should be walking away with the divsion and recapturing the hearts, minds and wallets of our state.