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Mirco sucks, there is no reason Yak shouldn't be playing over him.

Cory plays out of his mind but still couldn't get the win because four of our schmuck skaters couldn't score in the shootout and with two of them completely missing the net. If I was Cory I wouldn't blame him for absolutely trashing this team publicly. Either they are not scoring for him like last night or they are scoring for him like in the Anaheim game but at the same time scoring 3 own-goals against him. The only encouraging thing last night was the possibility of Cory getting more starts over Emoji-douche. Oh and I am 100% done with the Mueller experiment after last night.

Very encouraging to see Cory play like that though. He was really good tonight. If he plays like that, the wins will come.

Cory flashing more leather than Erika Wachter.

I was gonna wear my Cory jersey to support him, brought it downstairs but hadn’t put it on. He has been playing well, so now I figure I can’t touch it, it has to stay on the couch next to me. I’m cold and I’m about to go get a different jersey to wear.

And I’m starting to really not like this staff.

Cory absolutely deserved that game last night. He looked like how he opened last season, steady smooth moments instead of the jerky almost panic like that has plagued him for over a year. Hell even the scrambles he either got where he needed to be or the defense amazingly enough backed him up. Of course, when two legs of the chair work on this team, the third vanishes.

How many teams fans made those exact same comments when their teams would lose games against the Devils teams under Jacques Lemaire? Teams where the high scorer was Bobby Holik with 20-something goals but they were still winning regular season games in bunches. Don't hate on the Islanders; our heyday was built on the same principles that the Islanders are using right now and for you to trash them for doing the same thing that made us great smacks of hypocrisy and sour grapes. We lost. We're having a lost season. Cory played well. That's worth dwelling on. We're on pace for an excellent draft pick, which is the only realistically good outcome this season can offer us at this point. Step away from the ledge and understand that Bratt's twin poster could've gone in and this would've had a different outcome. This is a game of inches and we didn't manage to pull it off, but there are lots of positives to draw on.

Erika just misspoke and described the game as "A hard fart." Quickly corrected to "A hard fought game."

You lost me at "sometimes"

“Oh booooy Cangy, high level bed sh!tting by the Devils there!! Incredible!! Oh wooooow!!!!!”

The best part of the game last night besides Cory playing well...

2017 2nd and 2017 4th actually, for Mueller (and San Jose's 2017 5th) As much as I'm not impressed by Mueller's overall body of work as a Devil to date (and admittedly I'm pretty much done with him), might as well play him from here on out and find out if he's got anything that leads Shero to believe that he's worth keeping around. Devils have nothing to lose. Kinda sucks that Shero's more recent "picks for player" deals haven't worked out as well as Palms, but at the same time, easy to forget how little he inherited, both at the NHL and maybe even more so at the AHL level. The picks were just about the only asset he had to send to other teams, in trying to get some "NHL now guys". And sometimes you take a chance on a guy you think has some upside and isn't 2+ years away from helping your team. I do remember Tri not being terribly thrilled about Mueller at the time...looks like he was right about that.

I'd love to hear Hynes' justification for this. Waiting for that English barrier to come back up

Me either. I mean wtf? So without Vatanen in the lineup they're rather go with Mueller, Santini, or the soon-to-be-31 year old Eric fvckking Gryba? How many times are they going to pass up on him and choose other guys before him? When he's up here he plays pretty sound defense and also contributes offensively. The guy isn't perfect, but he's young and looks like he has potential. Keep him up here with the big club and let him work through whatever issues he may have while it doesn't matter.

Zajac is not worth 5.75M going forward, but his performance this year looks to be worth something around $5M on the open market. It isn't easy to find players who can do what Zajac does. The issue with his tenure here has often been that he's been put in spots where he's bound to fail. He's not a dynamic player. He doesn't make great plays in space, he's not a great skater, he's not particularly creative. He is, however, great on a hard forechecking line - great along the boards. With Jagr and Parise he shined, with Kovalchuk and Cammalleri he wilted.

Meh, just like I felt for KK the other night, I felt for Cory last night. Guy just cannot catch a friggin' break, EVER...yeah, he's been largely awful for quite a while now, but I was damn near PLEADING with these guys to find a way to get him one damned win...he deserved one last night. And of course they can't make it happen...you just knew it was only a matter of time, especially in the shootout...that could've lasted 10 rounds and the Devils wouldn't have put one home. As exhilarating as last year's team was, this year's team is equally infuriating. And I can see how that's manifesting itself into the things I notice. Like John Hynes apparently having exactly ONE facial expression, no matter what's going on. Michel Belhumeur of the 1974-75 and 1975-76 Capitals...poor guy went 0-29-4 in two seasons with those teams. As a team, those Caps won 19 out of 160 games. Jesus H... Jeff Hackett went 0-20-2 back in 1992-93 (as a Shark) and into 1993-94 (as a Blackhawk). That was part of a stretch he endured where he went 3-36-6 overall...amazing that didn't kill him (he played another 350 games over nine more season).

The way he’s been playing? I think he was sent a message.

If the team ever decides to score him some goals...

Aww, they gave Cory a nice chant. Good job, fans.

I wish Steve would announce the game from the perspective of rooting for the tank. "Out of the box is Barzal, the DEVILS LET THE PUCK RIGHT THROUGH TO HIM FOR A BREAKAWAY, dekes left, CORY WITH AN INCREDIBLY SLOW MOVE TO THE RIGHT POST AND ABSOLUTELY NO EXTENSION, GOAL ALLOWED!!!!!! Oh Dano, just marvelous play by the Devils to sh!t the bed."

No, but he might be inclined not to say anything at all.

I mean, on the one hand, Auston Matthews just signed an extension for $11+m AAV, is Hall worth $10=m? On the other hand, Matthews probably gets more if Toronto has the space for it. We have the space for it and then some. If he wants 8 years/$80 million, I think you give it to him. I think I might even go 8 years/$88m. I think locking him down will be a big part of our future rebuild because of...

That would have been a bigger travesty than drafting Matteau's kid!!

Dogsh!t.

Seriously, if I was Ottawa I would be doing everything I could to climb in the standings. Including buying at the deadline.

The delay of game penalty for the shot over the glass pretty much ended it for me. Although, to his credit, he did hustle really hard the rest of the game after that, like he was going to make up for it. The Coleman gaffe allowing the Barzal breakaway was way worse. I don't care how hard the coach is calling for you to come off (and I have no proof they were, but people have mentioned it), you don't abandon a guy like Barzal right in front of your blue line when his team has the puck. It showed a remarkable lack of awareness and was very unlike the Coleman we've all come to know.

Keep him here for the rest of this season season to facilitate the tank, but absolutely agree that he needs to be gone next season. Looks braindead out there

Nico and Bratt are a blast to watch 3-on-3.

I’d have signed up for a guaranteed point tonight. Well done boys. Now finish it. LGD

Bratt needs to shoot that. Way too many shots missing the net right now.

Man, Nico draws so many penalties. Forget the exact stat, but I know he’s way up there.

Schneider is playing very well, the rest of the team is... hanging in there, I guess. not much happened in that period.

Sometimes? That’s all he does. Rambling without any end in sight.

Schneider had a really nice period. Still blown away by how sh!tty this Islanders team is. Deploying fvcking Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck on the 4 on 4. Such a talentless squad propped up by like four competent forwards and unreal goaltending. I pray they draw the Penguins in round 1 and just get smoked, can't fvcking stand this team or their idiot fans. They're the worst fans in the NHL, I know that the rags are enemy no. 1 on here but I truly feel like Islanders fans are (in person at least) far more fvcking annoying. They're insufferable.

Nobody back at all, No D men insight. Unreal

Clowns. Almost happened AGAIN.

as I've always said, Kurtis Gabriel is a playmaker and needs to be in the lineup every night

What a shot. Sometimes even 4th liners have moments where you're like, "Ohhhh that's why they're in the NHL."

ROONEYYYY!

Nico has a whole group here of what I assume are his friends and family. All pretty loud.

LGD. A loss by only one is almost a win. Do it. Also: https://www.nhl.com/news/taylor-hall-considering-future-with-new-jersey/c-304584246

There's a million instances of agents saying their client is either neutral or unhappy with a place. You need look no further than like a week and a half and ago when Panarin's agent essentially stated that his client will not be with the CBJ beyond this season (when you read between the lines.) I know we're Devils fans, so the man is always out to get us or whatever the hell, but there's no reason to take this as anything less than mildly encouraging. There's no obligation for this guy to rave about Shero and state how much Hall "loves the New Jersey Devils and their fanbase." The degree to which you are encouraged by it is certainly up to you, but I definitely don't see it as a "he had to say that" type of article.

which may get us a dude who can play like a top line guy gotta focus on the positive pal lol Let's remember that without schneider. We might have McDavid/Eichel/Matthews or Laine right now....

C'mon, Cory's first three seasons as the Devils #1 goalie were very good. They were just wasted on largely rotten teams. Not his fault. Bad news is those years are looking more and more like the absolute best that the Devils will ever get from Cory. And as we've seen, it's not even like he's been "acceptably" bad since his fine start last year...he's been "How can we actually play this guy and expect nothing less than absolute disaster?" awful. I have no idea how the Devils even begin to ever get something out of him over the next three seasons.

People are going to stop respecting them.

What a bullsh!t way to try and make a buck, just give the damn jackets to the 334 people who were in attendance that night, assuming they are all still with us. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was not there, but one of my friends growing up had tickets and didn't go, he kept the tickets in a frame. Used to say he was a member of the 18,706 Club (capacity minus 334, although this was years later and I don't know if the capacity was the same back then, but it was still funny). Pretty cool club to be a member of.