No Breaks, Just Ugly
I’m kind of baffled as to how the Devils can fail to get a single judgement call out of Toronto. First there was the goal in the Rangers game, which clearly went in off of a an arm. That’s a hand pass: the puck was advanced (intentionally or not), and it should not have been a goal. Then tonight we have a referee so far out of position away from the net that he can’t indicate whether the puck is over the goal line or not? This is just plain ugly. And these little arguments over what constitutes a goal or not wouldn’t matter if the Devils could manage to put the puck in the net a bit more often. If you’re barely holding even in a game, a weird goal is a backbreaker; if you’re finding the net somewhat more frequently then the weird goal is just plain weird.
Uglier, however, is the state of affairs on the Devils blue line. Brookbank’s play in the last few games was simply bad. He continues to be caught way off of his check, either from a forward curling from behind the net or simply not having his “head on a swivel” — basic stuff. He’s getting out-hustled, out-skated, and out-gunned. Andy Greene hasn’t been much better lately, leaving pucks laying on the doorstep like luchen kugel (a heavy noodle pudding known to sink in a pool of mercury; a favorite expression of my grandmother’s generation to mean anything that was so heavy and so slow-moving that even Brookbank could and should have caught up to it).