These growing pains hurt like the Devil.
There may be a contrarian side to Brent Sutter, like with his boss, Lou Lamoriello. Just when Sutter is about to get credit for flexibility, reacting to stimuli and not making theology of personal preferences, he denies doing what he always admitted anyway, that at times in his junior coaching history he grudgingly matched lines.
The new Devils coach tried to tell all they hadn’t seen what they had, that John Madden’s line was playing, mostly in alternating fashion with Travis Zajac’s threesome, against one of hockey’s finest lines: Dany Heatley, Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza of Ottawa.
If it wasn’t Sutter’s idea, he should thank Senators coach John Paddock.
Madden and Martin Brodeur are Sutter’s only NHL award winners, his only elite at what they do, and what Madden has done best is check. Madden, except perhaps for Zach Parise, has been the Devils’ best forward so far this season.
Absolutely, coaches, Devils coaches, have matched themselves out of the job by squandering their offensive stars on the bench when foes keep trotting out their top lines. Certainly, Madden and Jay Pandolfo are aging and didn’t stop the Lightning or the Senators last spring. And absolutely, the Devils surely were their most exciting, and very best, when Larry Robinson was going head-to-head with the A Line against the league’s finest.
But right now, the Devils are hard-pressed to put forth even a B Line offensively. Maybe they’ll be able to handle Florida’s Olli Jokinen tomorrow in Sunrise, Fla., that no-match way, seeking to square their season at 2-2 with a second victory in a week against the Panthers. But there aren’t many more teams who match up like that. Atlanta? Pittsburgh? Philadelphia? Maybe the Islanders, the Rangers? The specter of a 3-6 season-opening road trip should strike terror into this team, and bode ill for the single-game ticket sales that open Friday for the Newark arena.
Madden enjoys this chance Sutter wants to give him to attack, and Sutter’s wish to avoid employing a checking line is admirable and good for the sport. But in this instance, it threatens to discard one of his very few edges. The minus-4 of Patrik Elias (who was a league-leading plus-45 in that Robinson style in 2000-01) and the minus-3 of Dainius Zubrus suggest that using Madden against Spezza and Selke Trophy finalist Pandolfo on Alfredsson intermittently in last two periods of the Devils’ 4-2 loss at Ottawa on Monday wasn’t such a sin, and certainly didn’t require denial.
There’s more needed than just adjustment time to be able to roll four lines without concern for matchups. The Devils will need their kids to improve markedly, talent-wise, and those are the growing pains they can’t afford, because until they become better players, they’ll lose lots.
*
With Bryan Berard signing yesterday with the Islanders, the Devils’ hopes to bring in a usable vet on defense are dwindling, although Danny Markov remains unsigned, probably not for long. . . . One of the brightest spots of the Devils’ first three games has been Arron Asham, who scored his first goal as a Devil on Monday. One of Lamoriello’s best signings of the summer, Asham has provided solid checking, hitting, and now scoring when the Devils have needed a bit of each. Asham was given yesterday off from practice for personal reasons, with the Devils back in New Jersey for the first time since Oct. 2.