I can’t say that the Devils didn’t work tonight because I thought overall they played a pretty good game. As I pointed out in my preview of the game, the Devils haven’t been putting many pucks in the net and that trend continued tonight. If you discount the emptynet goal the other night, this is the 3rd straight that they don’t score more than 1 goal in regulation. It’s not that the oppurtunities weren’t there, because they were . The Devils got 32 shots on Halak and 16 total scoring chances but credit Halak with a strong game.
Devils looked on fire out of the gate and Parise had a beauty of a goal as Langenbrunner hit Parise in stride. The Devils ended the period a little sloppy and allowed the Canadiens to get the equalizer. The Canadiens would take the lead in the 2nd on a nice tip and then get the insurance goal after a huge Devils swarm in the 3rd.
Fraser had a hell of a fight trying to create a spark for the Devils. I don’t think D’Agostini knew what kind of guy Fraser was because he was clearly overmatched.
January is shaping up to be a month I think I’d like to forget. They are 5-5 in the 10 games played so far this month but they’ve lost 4 of the last 5 and have a tough matchup this week with a very good Sabres team.
NJ heads to the Island tomorrow night for a rematch of Monday afternoon. I hope they show up for this one. Not sure the Devils change their gameplan from tonight, they just need to figure out how to get the puck in the net. The are certainly all kinds of slumps throughout the season and the Devils scoring is certainly something that is always a victim of that. Eventually the goals will come again, we just have to weather the storm while the Devils struggle in the goal department for now. As for the powerplay, we won’t even get into that catastrophe right now.
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