He works them, this Jacques Lemaire. It would have seemed a natural day off for the Devils yesterday, having played or practiced for eight straight, and not playing until tomorrow’s visit to Nashville, having endured the stress, strain and fatigue of their just-snapped winning streaks.
Lemaire had other ideas. He noticed the need to better repulse crowds at Martin Brodeur’s net and the lack of such crease-crashing by his own forwards.
So they worked yesterday on those items, this team that so overachieved to the tune of eight straight victories, and a 9-0 road start to the season, before falling 3-2 in Philly Monday.
“We want to get more goals and get more guys going to the net, and there are more teams that do it,” Lemaire said. “We’ll need it.
“I’m not waiting. As soon as I see something that could be important, or we’re not as good as we should be, then we’re going to practice.”
Yet Lemaire admitted his team lacked “energy” in Philly. Perhaps that’s not surprising, since they haven’t had a day off since Nov. 8 and probably won’t until next Sunday, not given last Sunday off after beating the Caps 5-2 Saturday, nor last Friday off after winning in Pittsburgh Thursday and against Anaheim in Newark Wednesday.
“[Monday] night, if we had the energy, we might have come back, the energy we had in past games. But we didn’t. That is the big reason why we didn’t come back,” Lemaire said. “We gave them 15 chances, which is a result of not feeling as good as we should for a big game.”
Doing it his way, Lemaire did wring those streaks from a team without two of its top defensemen and two of its most important defensive forwards. And the team that finally beat the Devils is a fast, tough squad, and was healthy. No shame there.
Patrik Elias, Jamie Langenbrunner, Bryce Salvador and David Clarkson, all thought to be aching, were excused from the skate, which didn’t seem to be punishment, just as there was no reward Sunday or Friday.
The Devils’ big failing, though, is something they can’t quite quantify. They have given up the opening goal in three straight, and six of their last seven games. They have fallen behind 0-2 in two straight, and 3-of-5. Those are symptoms, effects, and Lemaire is searching for the causes.
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Devils are making their first visits to the Western Conference this season tomorrow in Nashville and Saturday in Dallas. . . . Lemaire said he has not been told yet that Rob Niedermayer is close to returning from his upper body injury. Paul Martin (broken arm), Johnny Oduya (believed to be groin/hip) and Jay Pandolfo (dislocated shoulder) still are likely 2-3 weeks away.