With due respect to any of my readers from The Garden State, I hate New Jersey.
Have always hated it.
I don't like the way it looks.
I don't like the way it smells.
And I certainly don't like the hockey team there.
(And coincidentally or not, I have to travel there next week for work. Ugh).
New Jersey hasn't been called 'The Swamp' for nothing, and the Pittsburgh Penguins know that all too well, as they basically drowned in it last night, losing to the Devils, 5-2, and coughing up a 0-6 sweep of the season series to New Jersey in the process.
There's no denying it ... the Devils have the Penguins number this year. Pittsburgh should be very concerned if they have to match up against New Jersey in the post-season, although frankly, if they display the kind of decision-making they did last night, it won't matter who the Penguins match up against in the playoffs.
I'll make no bones about it. Pittsburgh basically handed the game to the Devils last night. They made stupid mistake after stupid mistake and then watched helplessly as New Jersey capitalized on just about every one of them.
The bigger shame of it all is that they wasted an excellent start to the game, when they jumped on the Devils early, controlled the play deep in New Jersey's zone, and got a 1-0 lead on a goal by LW Chris Kunitz to show for it.
After that, it was all downhill from there.
It started halfway through the first period when defenseman Brooks Orpik broke his stick while in the Penguins' zone. Once his defense partner, Kris Letang, corralled the puck and the Devils pulled back for a line change, things seemed disarmed enough.
That is, until Letang failed to get the puck around the sole remaining Devils' forechecker at the Penguins blueline. As Orpik was going to the bench for a change, Letang lost the puck and Danius Zubrus -- screaming through the neutral zone from the New Jersey bench -- took it in full stride and blew into the Pens' zone on a breakaway before Mark Eaton was able to get to him from the Pittsburgh bench.
Zubrus made a nice move to beat Pens' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. And I wanted to drive a nail in Letang's head.
I remember watching Letang with the puck on that play, thinking "okay Tanger ... your partner lost his stick ... you SHOULD know that ... just be sure you at least get the puck out".
And that even assumes Orpik WASN'T going to go off for a line change, which of course, he did.
Unfortunately, that brain fart was only the beginning for the Penguins last night.
RW Bill Guerin tried a cross-ice pass to Tyler Kennedy near the center red line during another line change about 8 minutes later, only to have that picked off by New Jersey defenseman Paul Martin. Martin, despite playing for the first time in 59 games after absorbing a shot -- and a broken forearm -- from Guerin a game against the Pens' in October, walked in alone down the near boards and beat Fleury just above the pad to the far side for a 2-1 Devils' lead before the first period ended.
One might think the intermission would have allowed Pittsburgh to settle down.
Instead, someone must have snuck in the locker room, stole their hockey sense, and ran it outside and dumped it in the swamp somewhere, because they made two even more costly gaffes in the second period. On the same power play. In the exact same way.
The first time it happened, the Penguins attempted a cross-ice pass at the point that was stolen by Devils' winger Travis Zajac. Zajac walked in on Fleury all alone and #29 robbed him with a spectacular glove save.
If the Penguins didn't know before last night -- the 6th game of the year between the clubs -- that the Devils press the point on the power play, they certainly should have understood that after Fleury bailed them out on that one, right?
Wrong.
30 seconds later, they attempted another cross-ice pass at the point and this one was picked off by Patrick Elias. Elias walked in on his breakway and beat Fleury with a shot to the blocker side for a 3-1 lead.
Zach Parise piled onto the Penguins' misery halfway through the second period when another Pittsburgh turnover led to a 4-on-2 rush that he finished for a 4-1 lead, chasing Fleury to the bench in favor of backup Brent Johnson in the process.
Ruslan Fedotenko scored at the 5 minute mark of the 3rd period to make things appear that they might get interesting, and a 5-minute major penalty to Devils' winger Rod Pelly for boarding Pens' blueliner Alex Goligoski with 6 and 1/2 minutes to go (offset by a 2-minute minor to Letang for retaliating) gave the Pens a chance to press, but they finished off the season series against New Jersey with an 0-fer (0-for-21) on the man-advantage after they failed to score on that chance, and Rob Niedermayer made the score a 5-2 final with an empty-net goal before the game ended.
And so, with that, the Penguins left New Jersey empty handed against the Devils this whole year and headed to a world of hate in Boston for their matchup against Boston tonight with nothing but a disgusted taste in their mouths.
I don't think the Penguins played poorly overall last night (they outshot New Jersey 26-19, for instance) but clearly, the system the Devils play poses big problems for the Boys of Winter. If Head Coach Dan Bylsma and his players can't figure out a way to adjust their way past what the Devils can bring, they better hope they don't see New Jersey in the post-season.
I do believe that the playoffs are a different animal, but no matter what any Penguin player in the locker room says, after 6 convincing losses by a total score of 22-5 this year, their confidence would be fragile in any post-season matchup against the Devils.
On the other side of the fence, Devils' head coach Jacques Lemaire had this to say after the game last night about potentially meeting the Pens in the playoffs:
"Our confidence will still dominate at that point".
Let's hope the Penguins forget about the Devils quickly because they have a rather important game to play tonight against the Bruins that everyone will be watching.
While all eyes will be on Matt Cooke and whether there's any carnage to befall him or other Penguin players in retaliation by the Bruins for Cooke's legal, but grade-2-concussion-inducing-blind-side-to-the-head hit on Boston star Marc Savard last week, I found this quote from Boston tough guy Shawn Thornton 2 days ago interesting:
"I don't want to sound soft, but listen, we all want to take care of things. But at this point in the season, we're trying to make the playoffs, we're one point up, and it's probably not going to happen the way everyone in Boston wants it to. Unfortunately."
Time will tell whether that proves to be the case, but NHL head disciplinarian Colin Campbell will be at the game personally, and the league has assigned its two most veteran officials -- Bill McCreary and Stephen Walkom -- to handle the game in an effort to make cooler heads prevail.
I said the other day I don't believe anything meaningful is going to happen other than one fight involving Cooke, but I guess time will tell.
Cooke aside, the rest of the Penguins need to get it together on the ice, or they face dropping 4 out of 5 on their road trip.
Several Penguin players -- including guys like Tyler Kennedy, Max Talbot and Bill Guerin -- need to step up their games right now.
After being scratched for 2 contests and looking good returning to the lineup Saturday against Tampa Bay, Kennedy looked bad last night and earned the -3 rating he got for the game honestly.
Bill Guerin doesn't have the extra step I thought he would have coming off the Olympic break, and Max Talbot just isn't showing any energy out there on the ice. He actually looked lackadaisical on several occasions last night.
The Penguins have been traditionally good in March and, while they started that way again this year, they've hit a few big roadblocks the last week or so. It's really important they get things on track if they want to have a shot at the Atlantic Division title -- even if they have to do it without Evgeni Malkin, who missed last night's game with a foot injury, is unlikely to go tonight, and may not be back until next week.
Recap tomorrow.
Let's Go Pens!
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