Maple Leafs 4, Devils 2: An egg of an opener

The Devils put forth a very underwhelming performance in their first home game of the season.

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A few notes following a disappointing effort from the New Jersey Devils:

The offense looked sleepy

Despite the travel from Prague, I wasn’t too worried about the Devils falling asleep at the wheel in this game.

I thought a home opener against the new coach’s former team – who happened to be playing in a road back-to-back – would be enough for the Devils to hit the ground running and meet the Maple Leafs in the middle, so to speak. I was wrong!

The Devils just couldn’t find their groove offensively in this game. They didn’t create much of anything on the counter attack. Their rush play was non-existent. They struggled to transition from defense to offense. They couldn’t do much of anything.

New Jersey generated only two high-danger chances at 5v5 in the opening period. Things didn’t improve from there, with the Devils piling up three Grade A looks at 5v5 over the final 40 minutes in a game they were trailing for 2.5 periods.

Dennis Hildeby did what he had to in his NHL debut but, man, the Devils sure made it easy on him. Realistically speaking, they couldn’t have threatened less than they did.

We saw the consistent clunkiness in attack that was front and center during the team’s early preseason games.

Given how lifeless the team looked offensively, I would’ve liked to see Sheldon Keefe a little more trigger happy in shaking the lines up. The team clearly needed a spark.

Finding Nemo