RALEIGH – While they’re still on the playoff bubble, their air of invincibility has burst.
The Devils reach the midpoint of the season tomorrow when they play host to the Kings to open a stretch of four games in six nights. They were still holding down the final Eastern berth as they faced the Hurricanes here last night, but now, Jaromir Jagr and the Capitals have joined the Canadiens as teams chasing them, only two points back.
Having fallen into a race just to make the playoffs, the Devils have lost much of their luster as a perennial contender. And they’ve done it by overestimating themselves.
Of their 15 regulation losses this season, nine came to teams that are out of the playoffs. The Devils have been clearly guilty of taking victory for granted because of past glories. Now, they’re starting to sweat, and they’re developing another fear – that of missing the playoffs. That concern leads to another danger – that by watching the finish line, they’ll stumble on the rubble at the feet.
“Don’t look at April. Look at [the next game],” Bobby Holik said. “Maybe that’s one of the problems.”
“I’m not worried about the playoffs because that’s too far ahead,” Larry Robinson said. “I’m worried about the present. This month. One good game, one bad game is not going to get us ahead.”
They entered last night 8-5-3 since the end of their disastrous 4-7-2-1 November, which means they’re 12-12-5-1 since starting the season 5-3-0-1 in October. They’ve atoned for that bad month by tightening up defensively, but they’re still far from being the team that has piled up five straight 100-point seasons. The most they could manage at the halfway point was 45, and that would require them to go something like 25-11-5 in the second half to join the dynastic Oilers as the only six-time 100-point team behind the eight-straight record of Montreal.
“I think we’re a better team that we’ve shown numerous times. I know we’re better,” Scott Niedermayer insisted. “We do have big things to measure up to, but all that aside, we do feel we have to be better now and for the rest of the season.”
They hadn’t shown well on the road this year, standing 6-7-3-2 away from their 11-8-2 Meadowlands home. They’ll have to play 22 of their final 41 on the road, and that will make their 100-point quest even more unlikely.
All of those issues scream that it’s time for Lou Lamoriello to pull off a big deal for an offensive star, someone to fill the 43-goal void left by the departure of Alexander Mogilny. It could well be that the auction of Vincent Lecavalier has reopened, and the three-game NHL debut of Brian Gionta could be suspected as a showcase of one of their few young trading commodities.
Gionta was sent back to Albany Friday after scoring his first NHL goal in Thursday’s 4-3 loss to Nashville, a defeat that spoiled the Devils’ bid for their first three-game winning streak since Nov. 1. Gionta had been in the lineup while Tampa was scouting at the Meadowlands for two straight games, double-teaming Thursday. Andreas Salomonsson returned to the Devils to try to improve on his unimpressive start and mend his minus-12 rating, worst on the team.
“I liked what I saw,” Robinson said of Gionta. “He was one of the few guys in good position in the slot to score a goal. But truthfully, Salomonsson should be in there. I don’t know that Salomonsson would get as much out of Albany as Gionta. [Salomonsson] can do all the things he should. His biggest problem is trying to impress.”
