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Devils Locker Room: Hischier, Keefe Cite Disconnect; Dillon Reveals Team Weakness

Inside the New Jersey Devils locker room, Nico Hischier and Sheldon Keefe cite disconnect, Brenden Dillon reveals team weakness.

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NEWARK—Whereas the New Jersey Devils were firing on all cylinders not too long ago, that motor has since broken down. The Devils dropped their third game in a row on Saturday when they hosted the Philadelphia Flyers at the Prudential Center.



RELATED: Devils Disjointed, Lose Another Lead, Another Game to Flyers

New Jersey started well, but forked over another lead, their second in as many games.

The Devils simply couldn’t get out of their own way on Saturday. Whether it was crashing into their own teammates, intercepted passes, or simply the inability to clear the puck from danger, it made for the perfect storm in a 2-1 loss to Matvei Michkov and Co.

Before puck drop, head coach Sheldon Keefe cited an illness that would perhaps impact whether a few players would play or not. However, no one was scratched for illness related reasons. In fact, Stefan Noesen returned after missing the last two tilts with a bug.

Did players playing ill gave an impact on the outcome? Keefe said he didn’t think it did.

Instead, the consensus amongst the Devils and their head coach was simple. The Devils beat themselves, and have been doing so for a little bit now, as a disjointed group.

“We made it really hard on ourselves,” Nico Hischier said. “Obviously, they played a good game. We knew they have a structured team as well. So we didn’t really put pucks somewhere where we can get it, and we were disconnected, I think. So, today we did it to ourselves.”

On multiple occasions, the Flyers hemmed the Devils in their own end of the ice. The Devils were able to limit the number of shots the Flyers attempted defensively. And for the most part, Jake Allen was there to make a save. However, the Devils weren’t able to curate any of that into momentum for themselves.

“Yeah, we needed a momentum shift, and we just waited for it to happen instead of just trying to simplify [the game] and play smart. We were trying,” Hischier said. “We just didn’t play smart enough. We put pucks in their hands, turned over way too many pucks, especially in the first period. And that’s definitely not a recipe.”

So, what’s with all the turnovers? The Devils were well out of their sorts on Saturday, credited with 21 giveaways to the Flyers. A handful of those came from the Hughes brothers. Jack Hughes‘ turnover in the final seconds of the game led to Travis Konecny’s empty-net dagger rather than a Devils scoring chance.

Typically, the Devils are a strong rush team who overwhelms the opposition with their speed and skill. Instead, the Flyers stifled New Jersey and forced them to play out of their comfort zone. According to Brenden Dillon, that’s how you beat the Devils.

“That’s the recipe,” Dillon said. “Take away our rush game, make us have to play a kind of physical, cycling, below the goal line type of game. I think we’re going to have to learn that whatever it is left here, 30 some odd games, it’s only going to get tougher. It’s only going to get closer.”

The Devils’ string of losses boils down to execution. Before Christmas, New Jersey was a well-oiled machine. Now? They’re making things harder than they have to be by trying to do perhaps a bit too much. Defensively, the Devils don’t see many issues. The issues are in the neutral and offensive zone.

“The message to the group was, ‘Let’s perfect the simple stuff first before we start complicating things.’ And we’re complicating it beforehand,” Keefe explained. “And so the breakaways today [for the Flyers], those are full possession pucks. They turned into breakaways against us, that’s the difference in the game, ultimately. We played well defensively. We didn’t give up a lot ourselves. So, you know, there’s two sides of it that way. We should have won this game 1-0.”

One of the ways the Devils did so well offensively before was by utilizing their forecheck. However, given their struggles in the neutral and offensive zone, it hasn’t been executed to Keefe’s liking.

When the Devils were executing, we all saw how well they were going.

“When we played our best, our forecheck was a real asset for us. It’s been really disconnected,” Keefe concluded. “We get interrupted from a breakout to the neutral zone to the forecheck. We get, I guess, disrupted. We’re not managing the puck cleanly. The opposition is a factor as well. You need support off the puck, so we got to clean that up.”

Fortunately, the Devils get another crack at it on Sunday against the Ottawa Senators. We’ll see how much they can learn between now and then.

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