John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
The last several seasons have seen a consistent force be the New Jersey Devils. The end of this NHL season is seeing the Devils fall completely off the cliff with ten straight losses heading into their next game on Thursday night. New Jersey hasn’t scored in their last two games and has lost all ten of these games having Martin Brodeur in net. I’m not blaming Brodeur here because the New Jersey offense has scored one or fewer goals on five different occasions during this streak.
This is an offensive problem. It is the loss of Ilya Kovalchuk in the lineup along with this team simply not having enough scoring options. It has basically been Patrik Elias and Kovalchuk this year. The Devils lost Zach Parise in free agency, and his absence is clearly showing right now as the Devils have fallen into last place in the Atlantic Division. The team’s defense has been great since Brodeur has faced just 41 shots overall in the team’s last three games. If you can’t score goals though on the other end, it doesn’t matter how few shots you are giving up.
Brodeur can only do so much, and anytime he has a bad night, the Devils are bound to lose. It happened last week when he allowed five goals over 18 shots. New Jersey scored four times that night but still lost. The Devils are going to need to go back to the drawing board before next season begins because the end of this season has proved to be an epic disaster.
Andy Schmidt is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ASchmidtSports, like his Facebook page or add him to your network on Google.
