Devils take it easy, wait for next opponent
Associated Press
WEST ORANGE, N.J. -- With time to rest after sweeping the
Florida Panthers in the opening round of the playoffs, the New
Jersey Devils seemed more worried about themselves Saturday than
their second-round opponent.
The Devils had been waiting to face either Toronto or Ottawa until the Maple Leafs finished out their first-round series Monday night.
|  | | Scott Stevens helped shut down Pavel Bure in the first round. |
"They have very similar styles," said interim coach Larry
Robinson regarding the Senators and Leafs after the Devils skated less than 30 minutes at South Mountain Arena. "Both have a lot of speed, exciting players, good
goaltenders, mobile defense and good specialty teams, so it doesn't
matter."
Toronto posted a 3-0-1 mark against the Devils in the season
series.
While Robinson said the Devils must improve in the next round,
the workout just kept them loose.
Veteran defensemen Scott Stevens and Ken Daneyko and forwards
Jason Arnott, Jay Pandolfo and Sergei Nemchinov didn't skate.
Forward Sergei Brylin, who bruised his knee in Game 2 against
Florida, worked out by himself.
"There are going to be only eight teams left in the NHL and it
doesn't matter who we play against," said Brylin, who hopes to
play in the second round after missing the final two games against
the Panthers. "It will be hard. There are no bad teams left in the
playoffs. Everybody is going to play hard against us."
When practice resumes in earnest, Robinson is going to
work on the Devils' power play, which was 2 of 16 against Florida.
"We're passing up opportunities to shoot," Robinson said.
"We're not winning those little battles for the loose puck like we
can, and when we do have opportunities, we are not burying them. We
are not hungry enough and focused enough to bury them."
In fact, the only two power-play goals the Devils scored came
from makeshift lines.
Robinson isn't going to change his power play, which was among
the best in the regular season.
"We have to realize that teams scout your tendencies, and when
you become too predictable that makes your power play that much
more difficult," he said. "Now we are just being too predictable.
When we played well, we really kept it simple."
The power play might have been the only part of their game that
struggled as the Devils advanced to the second round for the first
time since 1997. Martin Brodeur and the defense only allowed six
goals, including one by Pavel Bure, who led the NHL with 58 goals
in the regular season.
"We played fairly well and we did things we had to do to win,"
said Devils defenseman Scott Niedermayer, who returned after a
10-game suspension resulting from a late-season stick-swinging
incident and scored two goals, including the series winner in Game
4.
"We have to build off that," he added. "I still don't think
we played our best for the full four games of the series. If we can
just continue to get better, that will get us on our way."
Since the playoffs started, Robinson said the Devils have played
hard and done their jobs. When they struggled late in the season,
there were times they tried to do too much.
"As you go on in the playoffs, it gets tougher and tougher,"
Robinson said. "You not only have to get on a roll, you have to
improve. The later you go, the less weaknesses you can have. You
have to hit on all cylinders." |
