Devils Room: Sheldon Keefe’s Blunt Honesty; Nico Hischier ‘Pissed Off’

One month ago, no one would have thought the New Jersey Devils would go on a four-game losing streak before they won four games in a row. Fast-forward to today, and that’s the reality.

READ MORE: 3 Thoughts: Devils’ Top Players Absent, Losing Their Battles, Another Concerning Trend

The Devils are on a nightmare of a road trip right now. It started in North Carolina, suffering an emotional loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. However, no one blinked an eye in the 5-2 defeat by their division rival. It was the second game of a home-and-home, back-to-back situation against a strong opponent that you could see the Devils meeting in the playoffs. Then, the Devils got to California, which is when the real concerns began to kick in.

They’ve now been swept by the California teams, two out of three who are not in the playoff picture by any stretch of the imagination in the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks. There are no easy games in the NHL, but those are the kinds of games where you bank points, and the Devils came away with none. And against a strong, playoff-worthy foe, the Devils were blanked by the Los Angeles Kings.

Since coming back from the holiday break, the Devils haven’t been themselves. There are a few concerning trends happening here.

First, the depth scoring is a major issue. Paul Cotter scored his second goal in his last four games, so perhaps he’s coming back to life on offense a bit. However, outside of Cotter and the occasional Dawson Mercer goal, the offense has dried up in the bottom-six.

Second, the Devils—much like last season—continue to fork over leads and play from behind.

That’s what happened in San Jose on Saturday night, and has happened in three of their four games on the road trip.

As a result, the Devils have a disgruntled coach and an angry captain.

Nico Hischier

On the back of their fourth straight loss, Devils captain Nico Hischier summed up how he’s feeling in just a few words.

“Frustrated, pissed off,” the Devils captain muttered to the media.

Hischier scored the Devils’ first goal of the game to erase their one-goal deficit in the second period. It was the first time in their last 11 attempts that the Devils scored on the power play. In 10 chances before Saturday night, the Devils’ man advantage struggled.

In games past, the Devils would have ridden the wave of momentum that would have led to more goals. Instead, the Devils gave the lead back to the Sharks in the third period when Macklin Celebrini converted a Will Smith pass into a goal. Brett Pesce was left in a 2-on-1 situation with Dawson Mercer trying to make up the ground left by Luke Hughes.

Those are some of the little mistakes we didn’t see before the holiday.

“We all just have to dig deeper, look ourselves in the mirror, and just be better. Against a team like that we gave up way too much and that just can’t happen,” Hischier explained.

So what’s the difference between this version of the Devils, and last month’s version?

“Definitely some structure things. We’re not dialed in anymore,” Hischier said. “We’re giving them way too easy [chances on] offense. The pucks are on the wrong stick. Against teams like that, they’re gonna make you pay for it. We’re just not as sharp. And I think we just gotta come out better on the other side. But it’s definitely sucks right now.”

Sheldon Keefe

The Devils’ head coach echoed the sentiments of his captain.

“We’ve shown when we play hard, and we play with structure and purpose, we’re a good team,” Sheldon Keefe said. “We’ve also shown when we don’t we’re not a good team. Very simple.”

The days of the Devils only allowing the opposition as few shots as 12 were always numbered. That kind of defense isn’t sustainable. Therefore, it was always bound to regress to the mean, however, it was meant to be manageable.

Instead, the Devils’ defense has seemingly lost itself completely, and has resulted in the complete opposite outcome than the team we saw in December.

According to the Devils’ head coach, it starts with the work ethic.

“I think the structure is off because we’re not working, we’re not skating, we’re not connected,” Keefe explained. “As a result, when you’re just off by one stride… This is the NHL and if you’re off by one stride, or you hang around on offense, or you swing away, you expose the game unnecessarily, and it opens up the game for the opposition. You’re less likely to get the chances yourself to go and transition the other way. So a lot of why we’re not scoring is connected to the fact that we’re not defending properly, not defending hard enough. So you get what you deserve.”

Paul Cotter

If there was any silver lining after the loss to the Sharks, it was Paul Cotter‘s unwillingness to worry. The Devils forward won a Stanley Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights, so he knows a thing or two about some tough stretches of play.

“We’re going through a tough stretch. It’s obviously not something that you want to have happened,” Cotter said. “But at the same time, we’re such a good team that this stuff happens, and hopefully, this is the only stretch that happens, and we can learn from it, and get back to our game.”

If anything, Cotter sees this stretch as a taste of what the Devils are going to deal with in the postseason. It’s up to the Devils to figure out how to get through it now and bring that knowledge with them in the spring.

“I mean, you got to find ways to score. We have some of the most skilled guys in the league on our team,” Cotter explained. “You can’t worry too much. These types of things are going to happen in playoffs. It’s going to be hard to score, there’s going to be little scoring, there’s going to be weird bounces and stuff like that. So, we got to get used to that, and once we figure out those little things, I think we should be fine.”

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