My title of the article was going to be “Devils shit the bed” but I thought that was to drastic. If the Devils do fall short, like Brian Leetch is predicting, I am sure everyone is going to look at the games against Ottawa late in the season where the Devils left 4 points on the table. When you are playing a 15th place team, the night before you play the 2nd place team in your conference, its a must win. Plain and simple. The Devils didn’t do that.
Lucky for them that Toronto decided to start Giggy in net for the first time in over a month and he stunk it up so the Devils don’t lose much ground, only watch Atlanta jump up above them with 72 points.
Lets get this out of the way. Like last week, when Craig Anderson played better than anyone could have imagines, Curtis McElhinney was fantastic against the Devils. Lately NJ had been capitalizing on the opponents mistakes, like Wheelers the other night and been getting the pucks to bounce there way. Last night, Curtis McElhinney made sure the rebounds didn’t bounce their way.
Down 1-0, Chris Neil got an early goal, a flukey goal to put the Sens up 2-0. Take that away and the Devils could have been in this game. Rolston did close the gap in the 3rd with a PP goal through traffic but the Sens would ice the game with an empty net goal.
The Devils, like last week outshot the Sens and probably were the better team on ice, they just didn’t get the bounces. The Devils need to regroup though because a tough task is on their way into town.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!