The real problem

[Devils Pride 26]

Looking through the gdt's all I see is people bashing the players, lou, and the constant refrain of, 'this team needs a second line center and a top 4 defensemen badly'. You could say that about almost any team in the league. We have needed that for years, we aren't going to magically pull them out of nowhere. One thing that has been a huge problem, however, is Lemaire.

It was a huge concern in the offseason, then they got off to that great start and he becomes the greatest coach in the nhl. Now we are seeing his true colors. Many of the things he has done are worse than anything a rookie head coach brent sutter said/did but its ok because he's got 11 rings all from the jurasic period. The guy is coaching like a senile old dinosaur.

Imagine if Sutter played Marty 30+ games in a row. People would be calling for his head. Nieds and Pandolfo were getting stupid ice time for a while. Great with the kids? my ass. Bergfors started great this year and although he did cool off, how the hell are you going to heat up playing with nieds and pando? You put the kid in a situation where he was going to struggle. and what do you know, kids scoring already for the thrash. Some speculated we brought him in to get the best out of Rolston again. Rolston has his head so far up his ass and lemaire accepts it as if nothings wrong. Get this puck possesion offense outta here too. We dont have the players for that. zzpop was one of the best forechecking lines in the league and now we have them taking shots from awful places instead of working down low where they thrive. Special teams our an absolute joke, lost us the last 3 games. the passive box does not work and I dont know what the hell is going on with the powerplay.

why could we just hire haviland?

[Colin226]

You make some good points.. I mean I remember when Bergy got like 2 goals in one game and JL told the media he was disappointed in him that game for some small reason.. And I came on here and said he was f***ing with the rookie's head wayyyy too much, but I got heat for questioning Lemaire (most notably from Crasher who was deeming Lemaire a genius and savior).. I sincerely believe he messed up with Bergy

The Marty thing was also an issue that many people raised but I'm not sure if that was Brodeur's doing or JL's..

I certainly think it's good to discuss JL because he has been making a lot of people on here question what he's thinking

[devilsfan26]

I don't know man, all teams go through slumps. We could have just as easily hired Haviland, gone through a different slump, and then asked, "Why couldn't we have just hired Lemaire?"

[Colin226]

I don't know man, all teams go through slumps. We could have just as easily hired Haviland, gone through a different slump, and then asked, "Why couldn't we have just hired Lemaire?"

True.. BUT, this is only a slump if we pull through.. You only know you had a slump if you get out of it, otherwise you actually suck

Edited February 11, 2010 by Colin226

[devilsfan26]

True.. BUT, this is only a slump if we pull through.. You only know you had a slump if you get out of it, otherwise you actually suck

Haha yea that's true, I'm confident though.

[Colin226]

Haha yea that's true, I'm confident though.

I'm cautiously hopeful

[maxpower]

the Bergie thing doesn't really matter now. he could have been used better, but he didn't do anything 5 on 5. all of his damage was done running the PP through him, once all the pieces came back, he would have been on PP2 anyway... and good luck doing anything there.

Zubrus actually made him look pretty bad playing with Zach and Zajac. He looked superhuman.

I do agree about the system, when it's worked, (mainly against the Pens, for whatever reason), it looks awesome. but the problem is that the passing doesn't exist for it to work day in and day out. especially with the current group of D. and Greene is beyond run into the ground anyway...

basically, the team is crappy up the middle, and is stressed severely on D. and RW wasn't looking too pretty either, but Kovalchuk bumps someone to RW, and when Clarkson comes back that'll be settled. Marty playing every game is far from ideal, but you can see with how bad they are now, playing the backup goalie is basically inviting a loss. (although, you could make the counterpoint, that since we're losing anyway, who cares who plays net.)

they need to dumb it down a tad. I don't like Lemaire (duh), but he's not going anywhere, and if we sh!t the bed so bad that he did, we're not going anywhere... it's basically his ship. and I don't really agree with calling Johnny Mac up because his work is important.

would love to see someone better than Mario Tremblay on the bench, though. dunno how JL managed to get his own assistant

hired... that's not a trend with the Devils lately. dunno what LR is up to, wouldn't mind to see him around more.

[FightingMongoose]

Lemaire seems tight with Lou but above all Lou wants to win. Only he can make that change. If the problem is the shifting lines messing with chemistry, wrong offensive zone set, unmotivated and sluggish players than yea coaching is the problem. But how do we take the 32-11-1 record (from Jan. 12 including the Instant Classic right before the slump began in earnest) away from him though?

Is it injuries catching up to us? Mid-way through a crammed NHL schedule without our best goal-mouth presence in Clarkson, best defenseman in Martin, are we just out of gas? Will the Olympic Break provide a refill? Will Kovy adjust? Will the D tighten up?

Those questions will be answered in March. If the responses aren't good, post-trade deadline a coaching change is pretty much it so we'll know soon enough. For now we need to remember that this team CAN win as we've seen. There has to be a way back to it.

Edited February 11, 2010 by FightingMongoose

[Mu6atu]

Lemaire seems tight with Lou but above all Lou wants to win. Only he can make that change. If the problem is the shifting lines messing with chemistry, wrong offensive zone set, unmotivated and sluggish players than yea coaching is the problem. But how do we take the 32-11-1 record (from Jan. 12 including the Instant Classic right before the slump began in earnest) away from him though?

Is it injuries catching up to us? Mid-way through a crammed NHL schedule without our best goal-mouth presence in Clarkson, best defenseman in Martin, are we just out of gas? Will the Olympic Break provide a refill? Will Kovy adjust? Will the D tighten up?

Those questions will be answered in March. If the responses aren't good, post-trade deadline a coaching change is pretty much it so we'll know soon enough. For now we need to remember that this team CAN win as we've seen. There has to be a way back to it.

agreed

[vadvlfan]

It seems as if both teams shortened benches last night. We seem to be really gripping our sticks and forcing passes, especially on pp. I'm hoping there's nothing wrong with Zach, or we're in a world of dodo.

[PaDevsFan]

True.. BUT, this is only a slump if we pull through.. You only know you had a slump if you get out of it, otherwise you actually suck

God I am tired of hearing about the "slump" Please people they are 8 - 13 since Dec 31st That is 21 games, a month and a half. This is more than a slump. Slumps last a few weeks, maybe 10 games... This is going far beyond a slump. Giving up 2 goal leads is becoming the norm for this team. The Devils used to never give up a lead. Now what Toronto comes back, The Kings come back, Flyers i n2 straight games come back. This team is passive and is not playing to win but playing not to lose!

Edited February 11, 2010 by PaDevsFan

[NewarkDevil5]

This team has a ton of bad habits that we were getting away with at the beginning of the year and are catching up to us now. Defensemen when picking up the puck in their own zone are making bad decisions with the puck, not keeping their head on a swivel to look for the open pass and often wind up sending the puck straight over to the other team, often in our own zone. At the beginning of the year we had a terrific breakout. Teams would dump the puck into our zone and within two passes we'd be off to the races the other way. But unfortunately there's this thing called videotape and teams started positioning themselves to expect those passes and cutting them off. Jacques responded by ditching the breakout system entirely and telling the defensemen "Make believe you're on a penalty kill the whole game" and so they throw the puck blindly up the ice, very often up the middle.

The team has to have more than one way of doing things. I understand that Jacques is committed to systems and he designs from very good ones, but the reason why he wound up failing to begin with was that after he gained some major success with the Devils in '95, teams started watching his video tapes and looking for what he was doing over and over again. In 1997 the Rangers managed to play our own system better than we did in the playoffs against us. Once we became a high profile team and all those systems came under scrutiny, people started to pick them apart (not defensively, but with respect to our offensive breakouts and plays).

We are a team who struggles to get the puck in the zone on the powerplay. How is that possible? We've got mobile defensemen, slick forwards, a powerplay lineup that oozes skill. Whats wrong? Well exactly that is wrong. Our lineup dictates that we want to carry the puck into the zone on the rush if we can because a dump and chase for a cycle means putting our skilled players in a position to get their hands dirty in the corners so therefore we're predictable. Other teams know we can't dump and chase effectively with the players we've got and so they stack the blue line to break up our rush. As long as they manage to break up that rush we're fine. If by some chance we manage to get the puck in the zone with sustained pressure, they just make sure that the slot is cleared because they know that none of our highly skilled forwards is capable of parking themselves there with any effectiveness. We use forwards on the points a lot which means that more clearing attempts will work than normal because forwards aren't as accustomed to stopping them as defensemen are. Once the puck is cleared we go back to the earlier points about trying to get it back in the zone with sustained pressure.

Take a look at 5 on 5. Our best line for sustained pressure is the Neidermayer-Pandolfo line. The third line is doing better at cycling and sustaining offensive pressure than any other line. Take a look defensively. The lines that are working the best against us are the other team's third and fourth lines. These are the guys that aren't afraid to bump it up in the corners. The top lines (and powerplays) of other teams are scoring against us because they are facing a defense that is afraid to get hit to make a play.

I remember back to the 1995 Cup run a play where John Leclaire (a big power forward for the Flyers off the Legion of Doom for our younger fans here) laid a big hit on Scott Stevens just below the left wing hash marks along the boards in the corner of our zone that left him bleeding and laughing. He was laughing because, yeah, he got hit, but he made the play he wanted to make and he wasn't going to let anyone on the Flyers believe that hitting him was going to stop him from doing that. Thats what made him a Hall of Fame defenseman. The ability to make the play even with a 250lb gorilla all over him. Ken Daneyko wasn't a great skater (he was slower than frozen molasses running uphill) but by god he would NEVER let ANYONE intimidate him into making the wrong play.

I have been wanting to blame all this on being tired, and yes the team is playing as though very tired. But these are things that cannot be allowed to continue. We've got a very mobile defense, always looking to make the cute play. When they're under pressure they get rid of the puck too quickly. When they're not under pressure they give the puck to someone who is under pressure or just toss it blindly. This is something that has been happening too consistently from ALL of our defensemen (not just Mottau or whoever else is being thrown under the bus today).

I know that whenever I post things this long no one ever reads them so it'll probably wind up being a waste, but I had to get this off my chest because this has been going on for the best part of the year, but we'd been getting away with it until the last month or so. The bounces had been good, the defensemen's no look passes had managed to deflect their ways onto our own player's sticks. Things worked against the better odds. We had momentum. Now we have a different kind of momentum.

[NJDevs4978]

I wanted us to hire Tippett, but figured he wasn't taking a job this year anyway so it wasn't a big deal at the time...lo and behold he gets dragooned into taking the Phoenix job at the last minute and is about to win coach of the decade

It's really hard to say where Lemaire is the problem and where he's just a symptom of the problem. With the Bergfors thing and not playing other rookies lately like Fraser (he played 24 last night and was fine, maybe if we'd started playing him more earlier in the year the other d-men wouldn't have been dying on the vine now), clearly that's on JL although Sutter didn't even play the kids to start with. At least Bergfors hung around long enough early in the season to make an impact.

The Marty thing is clearly above JL's (or any other Devils coach's) head since it's been a problem for years, although it was weird how Danis actually got in a few games early then once he gave up the three goals to Dallas he got put in the freezer. Even the line matching thing might be an organizational belief as much as anything else, every Devils coach comes in and says we're going to change it and then every Devils coach goes back to playing Pando and his trusty center in a checking role.

I don't know what's going on with Kovalchuk, I can't imagine Lemaire is okay with his record-setting shifts although maybe he's so desperate to get the PP going that he doesn't mind it for now. I'm not sure if switching the lines every five minutes is going to pay off in the end (don't remember vividly whether Lemaire did it to this extent in '94-95) but if anything the chemistry's gotten worse, not better with time and that's clearly a JL thing.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Hasan4978

[cubanjd305]

I wanted us to hire Tippett, but figured he wasn't taking a job this year anyway so it wasn't a big deal at the time...lo and behold he gets dragooned into taking the Phoenix job at the last minute and is about to win coach of the decade

It's really hard to say where Lemaire is the problem and where he's just a symptom of the problem. With the Bergfors thing and not playing other rookies lately like Fraser (he played 24 last night and was fine, maybe if we'd started playing him more earlier in the year the other d-men wouldn't have been dying on the vine now), clearly that's on JL although Sutter didn't even play the kids to start with. At least Bergfors hung around long enough early in the season to make an impact.

The Marty thing is clearly above JL's (or any other Devils coach's) head since it's been a problem for years, although it was weird how Danis actually got in a few games early then once he gave up the three goals to Dallas he got put in the freezer. Even the line matching thing might be an organizational belief as much as anything else, every Devils coach comes in and says we're going to change it and then every Devils coach goes back to playing Pando and his trusty center in a checking role.

I don't know what's going on with Kovalchuk, I can't imagine Lemaire is okay with his record-setting shifts although maybe he's so desperate to get the PP going that he doesn't mind it for now.

So...you're basically saying that it's not Lemaire's fault because every other player makes decisions for him. Then that's more of a reason to say he's at fault.

[peteyvegas]

I read it. Great job!! Usually rants like that go separately in different threads but it all makes good sense. And it's not only this year. This happens every year, especially in the playoffs. I like to say that if you keep your ass facing center ice, you're in trouble because that always gives your opponent time to come and take the puck away from you.

Hey, what happened? Somehow I skipped to the bottom here!! I thought this was Newark's thread????

Edited February 11, 2010 by peteyvegas

[NJDevs4978]

So...you're basically saying that it's not Lemaire's fault because every other player makes decisions for him. Then that's more of a reason to say he's at fault.

The only player that actually 'makes decisions' or is involved in the decision-making process is #30. I think a lot of these philosophies are extensions of what Lou believes, that was my point. You're not going to go against your boss (especially when that boss is Lou) unless you have a career death wish, though I think part of the reason Lou and JL get along so well is JL fundamentally believes in all these things too.

And yes this has gone beyond slump status into malaise territory.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Hasan4978

[cubanjd305]

The only player that actually 'makes decisions' or is involved in the decision-making process is #30. I think a lot of these philosophies are extensions of what Lou believes, that was my point. You're not going to go against your boss (especially when that boss is Lou) unless you have a career death wish, though I think part of the reason Lou and JL get along so well is JL fundamentally believes in all these things too.

And yes this has gone beyond slump status into malaise territory.

I did get that part when you wrote that every coach comes saying they're going to change and end up employing the same system. But...you also mentioned Kovy and JL not liking it, that's why I asked you if that's what you were sort of thinking.

I get what you say about the boss....but man, don't you also believe that the general manager's job should be limited. Lamoriello is and has been one of the best GMs in sports, but has proven more than once that he can't coach for $hit. I really don't think that going in as a coach and wanting to actually coach, even if going after your boss, would be career suicide. It may get you out of that team, but no out of the league certainly. Besides if it works, there won't be a reason to lose the job.

Anyways back to Lemaire himself. My biggest deal right now (besides most of NewarkDevil5's points) is how soft this team has become under him (see topic hehe). It's gone even beyond softness...it's a whole new concept.

[NJDevs4978]

I half think the Kovy thing is because they're bending over backwards to make sure he likes it enough here to consider re-signing, ergo that might be partly a Lou thing too. And this team has been soft for at least three years, since Sutter came in.

[CRASHER]

You have a depleted by injury team that has players forced to play in roles that are over their head and having to do it in a condensed pace... and all the healthy bodies we have are mentally tired and wiped out... ESPECIALLY on defense, you just watch it game after game and it gets not only painful but OBVIOUS... hell just listen to our scratch list each game

I think this thread indirectly shows the level of spoiled the Devils fan has had it in 15 years.... the playoffs are a given.....they always find someone to fill in for an injury... it never matters who gets hurt, someone ALWAYS steps up and fills in (and to a point they DID this year too, just the grind has gotten to them), and the only difference a coach could make is play a Lowell guy a little extra before his time is ready and that's something Lou won't believe in so it ain't happening.....

(heh... side note I see Bergfors score for Atlanta watching NHL On The Fly.... irony)

so basically... welcome to the reality of an injury-depleted team in the NHL during an Olympic Year

[dantesinferno]

I don't have much more to add to what has already been said other than I like Lemaire. Right now the team stinks, they are painful to watch. I am still hopeful things will improve especially when Kovalchuk starts clicking with the team. However, whether it's injuries, fatigue, weak defensive roster or a tired goalie.....with this type of slump it is clearly the coach's job to figure it all out and find a way to get the team playing better hockey. If they don't win at least one of the games decisively before the break I would have to think that there will be some serious discussions regarding the rest of the season under Lemaire. I am willing to give him a little more time given the fact that he has not had a healthy roster all season long. Last night's scratches/injuries were a full line of 5 players out, Martin/Salmela (Salvador),

Parise/Clarkson/Pelley. We will have to see what the team is like after the olympics.

[HellOnICE]

We are a team who struggles to get the puck in the zone on the powerplay. How is that possible? We've got mobile defensemen, slick forwards, a powerplay lineup that oozes skill.

We actually don't have mobile defenseman, other than Andy Greene and he's not that mobile. We don't have a great puck handler to enter the zone with, and we don't have a good skating defender who can hit our forwards moving through the neutral zone with speed.

We have a mobile defense? Are you high? Mottau? Fraser's mobile? White? Sal?

Who is mobile? Who?

You really think our best sustained pressure line is the Pando line? I disagree. I think the Zajac line gets that reward.

The bottom line is we don't control the puck enough, IMO, because of the lack of key faceoff wins and the inability of our NON-mobile defense to move the puck up the ice with any sort of speed, the inability of them doing anything while they are in the zone (like make an offensive decision), or have a hard shot from the point, etc.

WHen the Devils get in the zone they can't use the D, because their offensive instincts are ZERO and they have no big shot - therefore they make bad passes or make ill-fated shot decisions.

This teams needs a makeover on D, which is extremely difficult given we don't get high picks and we don't sign top-end free agent defensemen.

[HellOnICE]

I also don't think they are "soft". I'm not even sure what that means. Zubrus, Zajac, Parise, Jamie, Clarkson are all guys on the top 9 who don't shy away from the body at all. They aren't "big", but they aren't soft

Lou has conditioned the fan base, or maybe it's the current the way of life, that the coach is the first one to be called for his head at any given point of the season.

The guy HAS YET TO HAVE A HEALTHY ROSTER this season, and the same deficiences that were on the roster last season are on it now. That's on Lou. We still don't have a good enough defense. That's the bottom line.

[NewarkDevil5]

We actually don't have mobile defenseman, other than Andy Greene and he's not that mobile. We don't have a great puck handler to enter the zone with, and we don't have a good skating defender who can hit our forwards moving through the neutral zone with speed.

We have a mobile defense? Are you high? Mottau? Fraser's mobile? White? Sal?

Who is mobile? Who?

OK, I'll give you that the defense is not nearly as mobile as it was. We had as far as mobile defensemen Greene and Oduya (and an injured Martin who hasn't been around this year). Obviously Oduya is no longer here and Salmela is injured so we can look to that as an excuse of sorts for the defense becoming decidedly slower. Regardless of this, the mobility is not really the problem in my opinion. Say what you like about all the rest of them, but none of them are as slow as guys like Odelein or Ken Daneyko. Not even White and Salvador are that slow. Mottau and Fraser are kind of neither here nor there. They are neither tremendously physical nor tremendously talented with the puck.

You really think our best sustained pressure line is the Pando line? I disagree. I think the Zajac line gets that reward.

I think the Zajac line did the very best (recently) when it had Zubrus on the line with it. Every once in a while it gets a good cycle going, but for the most part its been in just as much of a funk as all the other lines. The Niedermayer line while it rarely scores, does generate a good cycle fairly frequently and gets good puck possession because the line-members are more blue collar in mentality and go to the corners more. In that situation the finish is the problem.

The bottom line is we don't control the puck enough, IMO, because of the lack of key faceoff wins and the inability of our NON-mobile defense to move the puck up the ice with any sort of speed, the inability of them doing anything while they are in the zone (like make an offensive decision), or have a hard shot from the point, etc.

WHen the Devils get in the zone they can't use the D, because their offensive instincts are ZERO and they have no big shot - therefore they make bad passes or make ill-fated shot decisions.

This teams needs a makeover on D, which is extremely difficult given we don't get high picks and we don't sign top-end free agent defensemen.

I think faceoffs are terribly overrated and overall, we're not that bad at them. Guys like Zajac and Niedermayer do a pretty decent job on them. Besides, most of the games lately haven't had too terribly many faceoffs. They've had pretty good flow and been up and down most of the way. The problem is that when the puck goes into our zone we have trouble on breakouts and turn the puck over more often than not and when we do manage to break out we get stood up at the blue line because we're terrible at dump and chase hockey.

As far as what soft means, it means that our defense will hesitate in grabbing the puck so that they don't get hit and then when the other team's player grabs it because of their hesitation, they're caught flatfooted in the defensive zone. When guys come into our zone, they have virtually no fear of being hit. When we dump the puck into the offensive zone we don't go hard to the boards and make the defensemen pay for picking it up. Thats being soft.

[Triumph]

the shot numbers don't bear out what you are saying, ND5. the shot numbers say that when pandolfo is out on the ice, the team is getting outshot, whereas when others are on the ice, they are outshooting the opposition. sure, when the pandolfo line somehow manages to fumble the puck down to the other end without icing it, they can cycle, but more often than not the result is nothing. and they get caught in their own end all the time. pandolfo's lines this year are getting massively outshot, especially in light of how well the rest of the team is doing wrt outshooting the opposition.

[NewarkDevil5]

I'm not saying that they are getting pucks on net. Thats the biggest problem with those players to begin with and its why they've never amounted to anything more than third liners in the NHL. They can't get shots on net. But, when they do get the puck deep in the other end, more often than not they are able to get a decent cycle going. I'm not saying anything comes of it, but I was using it as a case of "look, the best we've got at this aspect of the game are the players who will do absolutely nothing with it." None of the other lines are getting effective cycles consistently and those are the lines with the talent to finish on the opportunity. Zajac's line obviously will get its cycles going and be much more effective at finishing or at least getting a few shots on goal in the process, but the issue there is that during this funk even that line has been having major issues getting in there to start the cycle and sustain the pressure. Maybe it just comes down to a lack of Paul Martin and Anssi Salmela keeping it in at the points. I'm interested to see if Martin, Clarkson and Salmela cure many of these problems. I think that they will certainly help on the breakout and that Clarkson will definitely help on the cycle with whichever line he winds up on, but I think the biggest problems that I talked about weren't even the offensive problems, they were the defensive issues where our defense isn't taking the hit to make the play, isn't hitting the other team in our zone, and is generally playing a very passive game.