The first game of the New Jersey Devils was an ugly guy. The Carolina Hurricane has 17 high-risk opportunities for the Devil’s 6, which is reflected in the final score of 4-1. Worse, the Devil saw three players injured in Brenden Dillon, Cody Glass and Luke Hughes.
Related: The Devil’s 3 Keys to Defeat the Hurricane in Round 1
“For a man, myself included, we have to get better in the second game,” said Keefe, who moved to 16-22 in his playoff career.
While players are ultimately people who don’t perform execution, it is the coach’s responsibility to be prepared for each period. Especially in the second one, this is obviously not the case. During that time alone, hurricanes had 10 high-risk opportunities, and the devil had only two. “I think in the second phase, we were just overwhelmed,” Keefe said. “That’s not good enough. The third stage is good, but then the damage is caused.”
when Hockey writer Then, given the number of players experienced by the Devil, he clarified: Is this surprising? He clarified:
“No, I mean, of course. While we have veterans, we also have a lot of people who don’t have experience in this environment. I think those people are overwhelmed and can’t really attract anyone in the game.”
Later, he specially appointed three of Cody Glass, Daniel Sprong and Paul Cotter, who moved out of third place. Their percentage (XGF%) of 3.91 expected goals is horrible, the second output from any forward line in the Stanley Cup playoffs so far. (via Natural Stat Trick) came in, they played in just 16 professional playoff games and received minus 4 ratings.
Keefe is right, too thw“Listen, we’re going to get outshot probably every game in this series. That’s just the reality. This (Hurricanes) team is something like eight games out of 82 that their opponent outshot them. So we’re not focused on the shot clock. We’ve got to find our way to mitigate some of the pressure they put on us, and get through and get to our game a little more frequently, and then maximize the chances we get (…) but to me, there was just too much in that first part of the second phase is really getting into our game.”
Trend rising?
Keefe does start finding some combinations that work in the third phase. Jesper Bratt, Dawson Mercer and Erik Haula took the game 2-0 in 3:54 on Ice Time. Similarly, Ondrej Palat, Nico Hischier and Timo Meier allowed only 0.02′ expected goals in 2:15.
Of course, this is not all on Keefe, as the devil has made a tough hand with a lot of damage. It would be unfair to have their best offensive forward and best defensive defender, which is the same standard as previously held. But they know what else is still dominant from the style and pace of Carolina.
Thankfully, for the devil, they can still be right in Game 2. In 2023, they returned from two games and won the first round against the New York Rangers. If they face this deficit again, the Hurricane team is too suffocating to achieve realistic opportunities.
Source link
