SAN JOSE – Instead of a lovely little get-away that brings a team together, the Devils’ Southwestern journey has been just a speckled mess.
They still had a chance to turn it into a winning trip when they wound up the three-game set here last night against the Sharks. But much had already gone wrong.
It began heading south right from the start. Coach Robbie Ftorek chose to scratch Lyle Odelein from the trip-opener in Anaheim, and while Odelein supported his coach’s decision, others were mystified.
The Devils managed to win that night in Anaheim, ending a three-game road losing streak, but they suffered a different sort of loss when Bobby Holik was ejected for attempting to injure Steve Rucchin.
Holik was promptly suspended three games by NHL VP Colin Campbell, and the inference is clear: Holik – who has been suspended three times in 13 months – must change his way of playing or he’ll be suspended more often for longer stretches.
Without Holik, the Devils fell 4-2 in Phoenix on Thanksgiving night, dropping them to 0-5 this season in the second game of back-to-backs.
Scott Stevens’ plus-minus took another hit in that game, making the 35-year-old minus-6 in those second games. He stands plus-12 in games when he has not played the night before.
That same night, Ftorek found his nightly way of making his players scratch their heads, when he failed to promote Scott Gomez into Holik’s vacated slot between Claude Lemieux and Randy McKay.
Running away in the team scoring race, Gomez has 50 percent more points than second-place Holik, despite seeing mainly third-line duty over the first quarter of his first NHL season. Holik’s suspension was the perfect chance to see what Gomez can do as a main cog.
Instead, Ftorek put Brendan Morrison in that important slot – Morrison, who has asked to be traded. Ftorek has claimed that he never considered moving Gomez into Holik’s position, and that is differently just as damning.
So there was much on the line as the Devils brought their 1-1 record on this trip into the Shark Tank last night.
They were 1-4 in their last five road games, and remained without Holik. And Ftorek’s credibility as a coach again was being tested – whether he would bow to the obvious and promote Gomez, or stubbornly refuse on the unspoken basis that he knows better than any insignificant reporter.
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Devils host Rangers on Wednesday. … Overall, Devils were 4-2-1 in seven. … New Jersey had been held to two or fewer goals in seven of 11 road games entering last night, and had scored more than three only twice – once by virtue of an empty-netter. …Gomez was on his second six-game point streak of his career already, the two separated by one point-less game, giving him points in 12 of 13.