The New Jersey Devils And Their Defensive Doldrums
Once upon a time there was an NHL franchise so stingy on defense not even the slickest offensive players could penetrate their walls. It was a club so strong, so intimidating and so fearless they were known as the “beasts of the East” for over a decade. But, oh my, how the mighty New Jersey Devils have fallen.
The New Jersey Devils were once the epitome of defensive responsibility. The franchise won three Stanley Cups through great defense, great goalkeeping and efficient offense. With the Devils you knew what to expect year in and year out regardless or who the opponent was. It was Devils hockey and it made them winners.
But something happened over the last seven or eight seasons. Defensive stalwarts Scott Stevens, Ken Daneyko and Scott Niedermayer had departed. All three were defenseman, all three are retired and all three have their jersey numbers hanging from the Prudential Center rafters. They were followed by Brian Rafalski and Paul Martin who left to pursue more lucrative contracts or to play for their hometown team. Now a club so identified with and so dependent on defense is struggling to find it’s self in a game that has seemingly passed them by.
When Martin departed after the the 2009-10 season the Devils were faced with the prospect of rebuilding their defensive corps from scratch. General manager Lou Lamoriello went out and grabbed Henrik Tallinder and Anton Volchenkov to be the cornerstones of the Devils re-tooled blueline. New Jersey has yet to see a return on their investment. In five healthy seasons in New Jersey, Martin averaged 30 points alone. His replacements combined for just 24 points in 2010-11 and a mere 12 points and no goals this season.
The Devils went out and traded for Ilya Kovalchuk at the end of the 09-10 season and re-signed him to a huge contract extension in the off-season. (you know the story already) Then, as if that wasn’t out of character enough, New Jersey stunk up the joint so bad they failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since Bill Clinton was in office. The bizarre philosophical 180 raised a lot of questions about the direction the club was heading in.
Now more than half-way into the 2011-12 campaign and the defense is nothing more than a leaky damn plugged up by anything Lamoriello can find laying around. New Jersey has had trouble holding the lead; losing games in which they led as many as three goals. That was almost unheard of years ago–now it’s commonplace. Part of it is the mediocre goaltending but most of it is poorly played defense that exposes the mediocre goalkeeping on a nightly basis.
To add salt into an already seeping wound, Tallinder and Andy Greene are both missing extensive time with injuries. Tallinder may be out for the rest of the year with a blood clot in his leg, leaving the Devils with more whole and even more question marks on the back end. Since the start of the 2010-11 season the Devils have used 17 different defenseman if you include the recent call-up of Peter Harrold. Judging by all the changes to it, the defensive depth chart must be completely covered with masking tape and white out at this point. Even with all the changeable parts and seemingly endless supply of defenders, it’s still not good enough for a club so deep in defensive history.
This is by far going to be the toughest trade deadline and summer of Lamoriello’s career. He has to decide if keeping captain and soon-to-be unrestricted free-agent Zach Parise is even a viable option at this point considering the teams financial mess. If he decides to take what he can get and trade him it has to be for an immediate impact player that would considerably upgrade the blueline. If Lamoriello decides to hang on and re-sign Parise then he must figure out a way to get a cheap rental like a Lubomir Visnovsky from the Anaheim Ducks. It’s win now or go home, otherwise Lamoriello risks his damn bursting and wiping out everything in it’s path.
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I agree with this article, the defense is horrible to watch. Hanging Brodeur out to dry on many nights only to have the goaltender be the scapegoat when any knowledgeable hockey fan knows that he’s still an elite goaltender on a team with literally no defense. It’s painful to watch us in our own end, we need to get rid of these amateurs and get some solid D-men in front of our STILL hall of fame goaltender.