NEWARK, N.J. -- Maybe it was the collapse in Calgary.
Or the embarrassment in Edmonton.
Or, I suppose it's possible, it really did come down to this singularly pathetic display of defense from Ryan Graves on this Tuesday night at Prudential Center:
M̶a̶r̶c̶h̶ Mercer Madness pic.twitter.com/1k1VAqyKET
— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) March 19, 2024
That's a whopper, huh?
Trips all over himself, pretty much matadors out of Dawson Mercer's way and, for the coup de grace, swings around to whack the puck behind Tristan Jarry.
Game over. Season over:
NHL
And yeah, it's generation over, as well.
Which is, no doubt, for the best. Because this crap, candidly, can't conclude soon enough. And on this night, which the Penguins began a mere half-dozen points off the pace, it's almost as if they'd taken to the ice intent, if only symbolically, on checking off every bad box they'd experienced along the path to what just might be the most deflating season in franchise history.
Check 'em off with me:
✔ THEY AREN'T READY TO PLAY
Even setting aside the stomach-turning sequence above, the Devils emerged as if they're one of the teams in that wild-card race -- they are -- whereas the visitors emerged as if it were ... I don't know, some random Monday night in mid-September?
The puck dropped and, almost immediately, Jarry was under siege, with shots clanging off pipes, passes whizzing through the blue paint, boom, boom, boom, a scene that this freeze-frame might best describe:
SPORTSNET PITTSBURGH
Yeah, that really is Jarry way off to the left. And yeah, the puck really is on the blade of No. 2 in red. And no, I have no idea how that wouldn't become a goal, but this mess was so massive that didn't even stand out.
The team's preparation, obviously, is on the head coach. So I asked Mike Sullivan afterward how he felt about this start.
He didn't duck it, replying, "Well, the start was disappointing. They came out with a lot of pace. We didn’t match the urgency. I thought we grabbed hold of it after the first, whatever it was, 7-8-9 minutes. But the first part of the first period, they certainly had momentum.”
As ever. Been a problem most of the season, no matter the setting or circumstance. And that's as inexplicable as it is indefensible.
✔ THEY'RE TOO OLD
This was known, of course, entering the season. But the thinking went that all that experience might come with the wisdom to adjust to age. To defend, first and foremost. To stay more disciplined. To create chances off the counter. To rely on all that skill to finish those chances.
Wow, no ...
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) March 20, 2024
That's Evgeni Malkin, age 37, senselessly hacking at Jack Hughes, age 22, once, twice, three times until Hughes finally went down. To which the Devils converted the ensuing power play to take a lead, 2-1, they'd never give up.
No, Geno didn't hang around the locker room long enough to be asked about it, so it'd be brought up with Sullivan instead. And he'd begin, characteristically, by blaming, without naming him, new guy Michael Bunting for a turnover a minute earlier: “It started with our lack of puck management in the offensive zone. We make a hope play in the high ice instead of putting the puck back down below the goal line. That feeds their transition game. And then we end up spending, whatever it was, 25-30 seconds in our defensive zone defending, and then we get tired. When you get tired, that’s when you make mistakes, you tend to take penalties, and that was the result of it. It’s a snowball effect. It’s not just any one thing."
Respectfully, it is, though. Nothing about being tired makes Geno slower than one of the game's fastest youngsters. He just happens to be that by default now. And anyone even peripherally aware of Geno's personality would attest that he'll get frustrated when he can't catch someone, and he'll act out.
Repeat: He's 37. He's signed for two more years. There are problems with this team, and there are pending crises. This sure looks like the latter.
✔ THEY CAN'T SCORE
Jake Allen's .897 save percentage was one of the NHL's lowest, and that's on merit. He's been precisely that goaltender forever.
Doesn't matter. Never does.
All he'd do here is what almost everyone's done to these Penguins in stopping 36 of 38 shots, in being summoned out as the evening's No. 1 star, and then catching one or more of his spectacular saves on 'SportsCenter:'
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) March 19, 2024
I mean ... come on. To do that to Sidney Crosby?
"Great save," Sid would say. "If I bury that, maybe it's a different game."
"It was a good move on his part to be patient. He waited me out," Allen would recall. "That’s luck. That’s desperation, but a lot of luck in there. Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re not."
Oh, we're well past this being about luck. Get this: According to research conducted by longtime subscriber Brian Jackson, this marked the 23rd time the Penguins faced a goaltender who entered with a save percentage below .900, and they've now lost ... 15 of those.
More broadly, the Penguins' 2.90 goals per game ranks 25th in the NHL despite their 33.4 shots per game ranking third, a disparity that's outright nuts. And please, don't bring up the power play, which went 0 for 2 with three shots and ... ugh, I can't waste another syllable on this subject.
✔ THEY CAN'T DEFEND
Once more, just to let it all-the-way marinate, here's Graves, who was on the ice for four of New Jersey's five goals, at the canvas:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) March 19, 2024
Are there awards for the worst individual play of the NHL season? Like, say, an ESPY that we'd call a LESS-PY?
If so, stop the count.
Even Mercer, his former teammate and friend here with the Devils, couldn't help but laugh over Graves proceeding to poke the puck home.
“We’ll keep that on the low. It still counts,” Mercer would say. “Gravy's a great buddy of mine. I liked playing with him. I didn’t really look at him after that.”
That'd give Mercer something in common with our city's hockey fans, I'd imagine.
✔ THEY CAN'T GENERALLY MANAGE
Let's place the Graves blame precisely where it belongs: Kyle Dubas made massive mistakes in assembling this roster, but none comes close to handing this player, who'll turn 29 in May, a six-year, $27 million contract with a $12 million signing bonus out of free agency last summer. When even the most academic film/statistical analysis betrayed that Graves had been carried by his partner here, old friend John Marino. And when the blaring need on the Penguins' blue line was more physicality (he's got none) and more dependability (depends on how one interprets that term) and more ... man, anything.
Remember how the entire fan base erupted over Jack Johnson's contract, some to this day?
This will make that look like a bargain. Johnson's term was five years at $16.25 million, and all Jack did was go on to raise the Stanley Cup as a valued member of the Avalanche upon leaving. This player's performance has been twice as terrible at twice the cost.
Not that it's his fault, naturally, how much he's being paid. That's on the same GM who'd expressed being comfortable at season's outset with a fourth line of Noel Acciari, Matt Nieto and Jeff Carter, principally because he expected them to be defensively stout. Only Acciari was available for this one, and he'd be on the ice for 15 New Jersey shot attempts to three for Pittsburgh.
No, I don't want to hear about the hand Dubas was dealt. I'd rather discuss what he himself did with that hand. Because, beyond bringing in Lars Eller, who's been every bit the contributor I'd expected all along, the rest sure weren't much. And that even applies, albeit unfairly to an extent, to Erik Karlsson, who was acquired through a super-smart thought process but then left to languish without enough teammates to go to the net and capitalize on what's always been his strongest suit in getting pucks there.
Ultimately, it's on the GM to foresee stuff like, but doubly so when it's related to a player of such pedigree and so much available information.
This facet alone's the greatest concern I've got about all of this. I've got little idea what to think of Dubas going forward, but I've also got little use for what he's already done.
So, what's next?
I asked the captain how many additional levels of desperation there might be:
“Whatever the highest level is, that’s where we’re at," he replied. "That’s the situation we’re in. There’s nothing else to do other than play with some urgency and desperation, and try to get it a game at a time here.”
Yeah. Next week, it's all ball.
• Wilver Dornell Stargell days till Miami.
• Thanks for reading.
• And listening:
