"Here's how far the Devils have fallen in four days. Their winless start has their franchise-record scorer, one of their most skilled players, longing for -- wait for it -- the Trap. "We did a little better today, maybe because we started sitting back. That used to be Devils hockey. Everyone talked about the trap, but at the end of the year, we'd have [among] the most goals in the league," said Patrik Elias, their lone scorer in yesterday's 3-1 loss to the Penguins in Newark. They weren't blown out yesterday, but that's the best the Devils can say about their winless start. "We know we have a good team, but we have to play together or we're not going to do jack," said Elias, who snapped the Devils' goal drought of 94:36 and a run of giving up eight unanswered goals. Help may be coming in the form of free agent Adam Mair, but this team needs a bigger cap-rifice to free room for more players. They dressed only nine forwards yesterday with P.L.L. Leblond suspended and waived and Brian Rolston (lower body) and Anton Volchenkov (broken nose) injured. The numbers are nasty. The Devils have allowed 14 goals and scored six in opening 0-2-1. They have been outscored 11-2 after the first period. Worse, they haven't opened winless in three games since 2001-02. "It's time to be playing desperate hockey," Jamie Langenbrunner said. "When things don't go your way, you sometimes try to do too much. The way to work yourself out of these things is to go back to basics." The Trap is not why they made Ilya Kovalchuk the $100 Million Man, but he has not had a point since his two assists in the opening 11 minutes of the season." Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/devils/getting_late_early_for_winless_devs_ymiDcMN9gRsLyFulbjBEcO
That was wacked. 9 Forwards and 6 defencemen dressed for the club. Kovalchuk screwed them over BIG TIME!!!
