The real problem

[njdevil26]

My other problem with Elias at the moment is he just downright refuses to shoot sometimes. He passed the puck to Kovy like 15 times in a shift last night in that game and Kovy just whipped it back at him every time as if to say DUDE JUST SHOOT!!!

[PhuckinKillAvery]

After last night it's hard to even beleive that we're going to make the playoffs. I think I can actually name all the teams we've beaten since the new year..hmm Toronto a few times, Nashville, the Islanders, and the Sharks..am I missing anybody? I love how I was driving to work this morning and 660am had to say the Devils lose last night to the worst team in the NHL, in fact they got shut out by the worst team in the NHL, and I thought we hit rock bottom last year after losing 6-7 games in a row towards the end of the season and blowing a 3-2 lead to move on in the playoffs with only a 1:20 to go. This actually feels even worse..so I guess thank you Devils for making me forget I was at that game 7 last year.

[devsin4]

Exactly! Iknew this thread would come back. This team is nothing but a wanna-be finnesse team. No balls No glory!

[SS-SS]

:evilcry: all i got to say

[theamazingtiny]

The whole team needs to be in therapy to turn this around. The talent is there.

[Devils Pride 26]

seriously, go fvck with another team. tonight off the top of my head. putting elias out there to take the faceoff on our first pp. retarded. and then after the rags score sending out pando and his butt buddies. CMON

[Devilsfan118]

At this point, let's have seperate threads:

-Fire Lemaire (Already here, terrific)

-Get rid of white - mottau

-Bench Rolston

So tired of the bandwagon whining

[Devils Pride 26]

bandwagon whining? blow me. ive bashed this signing since lemaire was hired and hes done a pretty good job of spreading dysentery throughout this team.

FIRE LEMAIRE

[sundstrom]

i will comment specifically on tonight's rangers game in that thread but JL takes a huge hit on this one tonight.

[skeeter]

I have absolutely no confidence in this team because of their idiot coach. He lost the game tonight despite the players doing everything they could to prevent it.

[cubanjd305]

Love how he uses Mottau instead of Greene on the PP....the Greene comes in for like 20 seconds and makes the PP look better.

Love our C at the end of the game....at least Sutter had the presence of mind of sending out Madden for a better chance at winning the faceoff....

...again, I'm just waiting for the gum to do some damage

[njdevil26]

Sutter had this team as an offensive force and a b!tch to play against at the same time. He just wimped out in the playoffs and skipped town.

[Triumph]

Sutter had this team as an offensive force and a b!tch to play against at the same time. He just wimped out in the playoffs and skipped town.

that is an absurd oversimplification of what happened. you forgot the whole 'playing like absolute garbage down the stretch'.

[mouse]

Let's calm down some. Fine, Elias shouldn't have taken the faceoff. That said, JLs now come up with line combos that get the most out of all of the top 6. Kovy's developing chemistry with Zajac. We need Elias playing center if this team is going to live up to its potential. He's gonna get burned on some faceoffs, and the Zajac line, or even the Nieds line should be out for big faceoffs, but that's a small mistake. We got beat by a fairly talented, desperate team, on a brilliant play. Watch the pass. He had his back turned, White had blocked him off, and he passed it without looking and hit Drury's stick. If that doesn't happen, we're giving them credit for turning the offense around and survivng a tenacious fight by the Rags. We may not like them, but give credit where it's due. We got beat, they played a good game, and, despite the faceoff, I don't see another coach doing better with this team, least of all Sutter, who struggled mightily in metro-ice challenge games.Also, despite the first one, the PP looked good again tonight. Greene needs to rest for the playoffs. He logged a lot of minutes when MArtin was out. We still need him on the PK, and if that means he loses some minutes on the PP in the regular season, then so be it. Lundquist played a great game too, we could have scored a bunch more goals, but he stood on his head, which sucks, but happens sometimes.

Edited March 26, 2010 by mouse

[njdevil26]

that is an absurd oversimplification of what happened. you forgot the whole 'playing like absolute garbage down the stretch'.

Well yeah. I'm not going to go into a diatribe about Sutter because it is a completely exhausted topic. But my point is, in the middle of the season last year... this team was scoring 4, 5, and even 6 goals per game and making opponents look bad and overwhelmed.

This year's version of the Devils plays down to bad teams, up to good teams, has no consistency, and a coach that won't let anyone develop chemistry.

[njdevil26]

Did I use "diatribe" right? I've been wanting to use that word. Sounds like a militant American Indian word.

[95Crash]

Let's calm down some. Fine, Elias shouldn't have taken the faceoff. That said, JLs now come up with line combos that get the most out of all of the top 6. Kovy's developing chemistry with Zajac. We need Elias playing center if this team is going to live up to its potential. He's gonna get burned on some faceoffs, and the Zajac line, or even the Nieds line should be out for big faceoffs, but that's a small mistake. We got beat by a fairly talented, desperate team, on a brilliant play. Watch the pass. He had his back turned, White had blocked him off, and he passed it without looking and hit Drury's stick. If that doesn't happen, we're giving them credit for turning the offense around and survivng a tenacious fight by the Rags. We may not like them, but give credit where it's due. We got beat, they played a good game, and, despite the faceoff, I don't see another coach doing better with this team, least of all Sutter, who struggled mightily in metro-ice challenge games.Also, despite the first one, the PP looked good again tonight. Greene needs to rest for the playoffs. He logged a lot of minutes when MArtin was out. We still need him on the PK, and if that means he loses some minutes on the PP in the regular season, then so be it. Lundquist played a great game too, we could have scored a bunch more goals, but he stood on his head, which sucks, but happens sometimes.

I agree. I'm not sure what to make of all the Jacques hate. I don't think he's done a bad job this season.

When it comes down to it, we really can't accurately judge Lemaire until we see how he handles things in the playoffs.

[Triumph]

Well yeah. I'm not going to go into a diatribe about Sutter because it is a completely exhausted topic. But my point is, in the middle of the season last year... this team was scoring 4, 5, and even 6 goals per game and making opponents look bad and overwhelmed.

fair enough, but i do think this is a huge oversimplification, and that sutter didn't just change things for no reason; the devils were brutal down the stretch.

[DevilinLA]

The amount of revisionist history on this board is ridiculous.

[Devilsfan118]

People tend to forget that lemaire had us (and kept us) in the top of the east ALL season long. But of course, back in the earlier part of the season, that success can't be attributed to JL, it was definitely just the team overachieving. JL obviously had nothing to do with it.

I'm so sick of how quickly people turn on...ANYONE on this team. The GDT's here are painful to read. People need to learn to 'cool off' after a tough loss before spamming this board with "screw this team, they suck so bad, marty's old, JL's old too".

And on a last note, was there or was there not an icing before the infamous elias faceoff? As in, JL couldn't change his center, correct? Or am I mistaken?

[sundstrom]

The amount of revisionist history on this board is ridiculous.

my rants from last night have nothing to do with last year or sutter. i am not saying that sutter was better than JL. i don't think that at all.

my problems w/ JL have already been stated in this thread.

[sundstrom]

People tend to forget that lemaire had us (and kept us) in the top of the east ALL season long. But of course, back in the earlier part of the season, that success can't be attributed to JL, it was definitely just the team overachieving. JL obviously had nothing to do with it.

I'm so sick of how quickly people turn on...ANYONE on this team. The GDT's here are painful to read. People need to learn to 'cool off' after a tough loss before spamming this board with "screw this team, they suck so bad, marty's old, JL's old too".

And on a last note, was there or was there not an icing before the infamous elias faceoff? As in, JL couldn't change his center, correct? Or am I mistaken?

lemaire got his due early on. people are calling out what they see as something that clearly hasn't worked. coaches should put their teams in the best position to win. good coaches should use what they see and the statistics to determine what they ask of their players. the occasional "hunch" is fine as long as it's not a total seat of the pants type thing.

you are correct that there was an icing and that has been discussed to death already - JL should have prepared for that possibility by having a center on the ice for the last 3 minutes of the game.

[cubanjd305]

Let's calm down some. Fine, Elias shouldn't have taken the faceoff. That said, JLs now come up with line combos that get the most out of all of the top 6. Kovy's developing chemistry with Zajac. We need Elias playing center if this team is going to live up to its potential. He's gonna get burned on some faceoffs, and the Zajac line, or even the Nieds line should be out for big faceoffs, but that's a small mistake. We got beat by a fairly talented, desperate team, on a brilliant play. Watch the pass. He had his back turned, White had blocked him off, and he passed it without looking and hit Drury's stick. If that doesn't happen, we're giving them credit for turning the offense around and survivng a tenacious fight by the Rags. We may not like them, but give credit where it's due. We got beat, they played a good game, and, despite the faceoff, I don't see another coach doing better with this team, least of all Sutter, who struggled mightily in metro-ice challenge games.Also, despite the first one, the PP looked good again tonight. Greene needs to rest for the playoffs. He logged a lot of minutes when MArtin was out. We still need him on the PK, and if that means he loses some minutes on the PP in the regular season, then so be it. Lundquist played a great game too, we could have scored a bunch more goals, but he stood on his head, which sucks, but happens sometimes.

As soon as they score less than 2, he'll rearrange the lines....again. Have you, at any point this season, felt chemistry was going to be built between a C and his wingers? I sure as hell haven't.

And get the most out of the top 6? I don't consider Rolston a top 6 guy in this team, not with his lack of production and inconsistency. He recorded 17 of his 33 points in only two months, and that's with a 4 point effort against the Isles.

You said yourself why they DON'T deserve credit, because they got lucky in that last goal. But why do people are always so concerned about only the last play of a game? Devils had 59 minutes (and chances during that time) to put them away and not even be in that position. They didn't and, while no one can't blame Lemaire for Elias trying to break Lunqvist's pad, the coach has made, and continues to make, judgment error.....in the humble view of this board.

Edited March 26, 2010 by cubanjd305

[mouse]

As soon as they score less than 2, he'll rearrange the lines....again. Have you, at any point this season, felt chemistry was going to be built between a C and his wingers? I sure as hell haven't.

Due to injuries, there have been more players on the roster this year than ever before. Off the top of my head, I can't name all the forwards the team has played this year. That's beyond JLs control, and he's been forced to respond, and that means, yes, he has shuffled the lines. You try establishing chemistry when your team has had the full lineup healthy for fewer than 10 games at this point in the season.

You said yourself why they DON'T deserve credit, because they got lucky in that last goal. But why do people are always so concerned about only the last play of a game? Devils had 59 minutes (and chances during that time) to put them away and not even be in that position. They didn't and, while no one can't blame Lemaire for Elias trying to break Lunqvist's pad, the coach has made, and continues to make, judgment error.....in the humble view of this board.

Lundquist stood on his head. He's an elite goalie. It's gonna happen. That's not the coaches fault. You said yourself they had fvcking chances. That means they were playing hard and smart, and JL was doing his job. When an elite goalie spoils the chances the team is generating, there is NOTHING the coach can do. If they weren't generating chances, which has happened this year, then you could b!tch about JL, but some of the complaints have been simply asinine.

[Devils Pride 26]

<3 being right