Keefe puts Devils through battle drills after Capitals loss

Two days after a 7-1 thrashing of the Rangers, the Devils went to Washington and got pushed around for 20 minutes. The players said so first.

Anthony Corona

@ACoronaNJD

Timo Meier on the second period: "I think it just comes down to the battle. They won more puck battles. They were skating more. We didn’t do a good enough job to win this one." #NJDevils

Arseny Gritsyuk had New Jersey up 1-0 in the 1st and Ryan Leonard tied it before intermission. Then came the second period. Ilya Protas scored 1:16 in, Dylan Strome made it 3-1 at 4:36 and Boone Jenner made it 4-1 at 11:14. Jake Allen finished with 21 saves and Meier's goal came with 1 second left in the game, which tells you how much it counted. Keefe didn't sugarcoat any of it.

Anthony Corona

@ACoronaNJD

Sheldon Keefe on the second period: "I don’t know if we won a puck battle the entire second period. Loose pucks around. We didn’t physically get anybody stopped. We didn’t get in anybody’s way, so they’re just roaming around. We’re constantly on our heels in terms of one guy allowing somebody to beat us and get by us, so somebody else has to leave their check to try to cover it. Now you’re just stuck all in between. All the things that we did really well against the Rangers in terms of being tight and giving them a whole lot of nothing, that didn’t hold up here today against this team." #NJDevils

That last line about the Rangers is the part that hurts. Against New York the Devils were tight and gave up nothing. Against Washington one guy got beat, a second guy left his man to help, and the whole structure fell apart. The loss dropped New Jersey to 4-4-0, and after 8 games this team has been great one night and soft the next. That's what Devils fans are tired of.

Keefe gave them credit for pushing back in the 3rd, but he also pointed out that a team sitting on a 3-goal lead stops playing the same way, so a good final period down 4-1 doesn't prove much. The fix was going to have to come in practice.

On Monday, that's how it went. There were no lines and no pairings. Keefe said the plan was already to lean on battle work, and with injuries leaving him only 11 forwards, Connor Brown included, he skipped the team-structure and line-rush work entirely. The day went to individual habits: winning pucks, finishing checks, getting bodies stopped in the corners.

Amanda Stein

@amandacstein

No lines or pairings today for #NJDevils. There was a ton of drills and plays forcing players to be aggressive on pucks, ending plays quickly and taking out bodies in the corners. All the things HC Keefe said were severely lacking in Washington.

There was some good news too. Luke Evangelista missed 3 games fighting a cold he couldn't shake. He says he feels good again and will be back Tuesday night against Colorado. He watched the Rangers win and the Washington loss from the stands, so he saw the same gap Keefe did, and his coach expects him to bring some jump.

Amanda Stein

@amandacstein

On Luke Evangelista's return tomorrow for #NJDevils, HC Keefe says: "He feels good. Talked to him, looked good in practice, and I expect him to give us a little push tomorrow."

Getting Evangelista back helps, but the Avalanche are a much tougher test of whether Monday's work sticks. Colorado is fast and will punish any loose puck the way Washington did, and probably worse. If the Devils play the way they did against the Rangers, they can beat anybody. If they lose the battles again the way they did in the 2nd period Saturday, 4-4-0 turns into a losing record, and nobody will be talking about score effects.