NEWARK, N.J. — The New Jersey Devils are in danger of becoming the latest team to be steamrolled by the Los Angeles Kings.
The Devils played one of their worst games of the postseason in dropping the series opener 2-1 in overtime Wednesday night, and they can’t afford another subpar effort.
Lose two games at home to a team that has posted a 9-0 record on the road this postseason and the guys who lug around hockey’s biggest prize might start shining it in earnest after Saturday night’s game at the Prudential Center.
The situation is desperate for coach Peter DeBoer’s team. While they missed chances to win the opener, they also made a slew of mistakes that ranged from bad dump-ins of pucks, being tentative on the ice, failing to shoot when the shot was there and leaving the Kings open. The most glaring error came in overtime when Anze Kopitar scored on a breakaway.
The problems can be fixed. The bad news is that the Kings weren’t exactly at their best either … and still won.
And if you’re a Devil, here’s a scary fact: The Kings have played some of their best hockey in Game 2s of their three previous series, beating the Vancouver Canucks, St. Louis Blues and Phoenix Coyotes by a combined 13-4 margin to take a 2-0 series lead back to Los Angeles each time.
“The comforting thing for me is when I listen to the comments of our players last night, they were dead-on,” DeBoer said. “We weren’t good enough. We have to be better. We got over the early-game jitters. We started to play a little bit better. But, you know, as a group, we’ve got to bring more to win this time of year.”
The Devils carried the play in the third period and had two great chances to take the lead. Captain Zach Parise failed to put a bouncing puck in the net four minutes into the period, and defenseman Mark Fayne missed a wide-open net with about 10 minutes remaining.
“We didn’t play at our best. … Still having a chance to win, that makes us feel pretty good that we can play better, be a little bit more successful,” Devils captain Travis Zajac said.
If there has been a key to the Kings’ record success on the road in the postseason, it might be scoring the first goal. They have trailed for only 58:08 in nine road games.
“We have been focused in on starts, and our starts have been pretty good,” Kopitar said. “It always helps when you are not playing catch-up hockey. Everybody knows it is easier to play with the lead.”
