Game thread: Tampa Bay @ Devils

[msweet]

I think that was back when we had a guy named Kozlov.

Parise, Gionta and Elias did in the shootout what the did in the game. Pretty much nothin'.

Doc and Chico were right.. the passing just seemed COMPLETELY out of sync. Pucks pushed just a little too far or low percentage cross-ice passes. The only way the Devils were advancing the puck was by skating it because every pass was intercepted or didn't hit the intended target. We were damn lucky to escape with a point.

Sigh I've seen Elias miss that move too many times in shootouts and on penalty shots.

Oh well, I'll take the point.

It was a boring game. It was completly sloppy with barely any physical game what so ever.

Why didn't Madden take a shootout? He is 3 for 3. Elias was only 1 for 5 prior to his miss

I was at the game last night and pretty much agree with all of these sentiments.

The building was empty and dead and so were the Devils.... The team played like they didn't care, which was probably true. They have been playing too many intense game and it seemed they weren't into it.

Gomez played like he had 4 beers before the game.... White's penalty I predicted after I saw him arguing with the refs over an icing call... which the refs were right....he's a weird mental case sometimes.

We couldn't pass for shvt and worst of all we could not control the puck....bouncing off sticks all night... in soccer they'd say we had a really bad first touch.

We are going to see what TB did to us a lot. They kept sending out the Lecavlier line over and over again... keeping Madden-Pando out there, thus not giving us a chance to score. Julien will not send anyone out there but Madden-Pando against the other teams top lines. They jump onto the ice instantly.

A few other notes:

Langenbrunner looks Highly frustrated

Martin is gaining offensive confidence

Lukowich struggled with TB's speed

Greene looked completely lost

Gomez, on several occasions was lazy getting back on "D"

Julien is shuffling his "D" too much, not sending them out in pairs.... this is ok in a pinch but I do not like it as a rule... there can be any 2 out there at anytime.

I am appreciating the Parise/Zajac/Langs line a lot... they work hard every shift on both ends... Gomez should watch Zajac "get back on defense" films

We were highly lucky to get a point last night... TB hit like 7 or 8 posts and missed several point blank shots... that game easily could have been 4-1 after 1 period.

[MantaRay]

Hmm. Last night was the first night that I was actually impressed by Gomez on D. He covered the front of the net on one play and had some good puck pursuit behind Marty as well. I got the impression he wanted to show up Richards (who his arbitration numbers were based on last year).

I agree about Martin. The past two weeks he started to look like a young....dare I say Nieds. Obviously, not with the same confidence, but he reminded me of how Nieds played in his first few seasons.

[msweet]

Hmm. Last night was the first night that I was actually impressed by Gomez on D. He covered the front of the net on one play and had some good puck pursuit behind Marty as well. I got the impression he wanted to show up Richards (who his arbitration numbers were based on last year).

I agree about Martin. The past two weeks he started to look like a young....dare I say Nieds. Obviously, not with the same confidence, but he reminded me of how Nieds played in his first few seasons.

You are right about Gomer, but he only did that a few times... the rest of the time, he was late or lazy or both. And considering how much EGG was turning over the puck, he needed to do better.