Sheldon Keefe Dejected, Rips Devils Deflated Effort vs. Flyers

PHILADELPHIA—New Jersey Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe wears his heart on his sleeve. When he’s unhappy with the effort, you can see it. Following the Devils’ loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday, Keefe was certainly unceremonious when asked about his teams’ effort.

The Devils had the opportunity to swing momentum their way early. A high-stick to the face of Ondrej Palat drew blood, and New Jersey went to the man advantage for four minutes.

However, the power play was sloppy and disjointed, creating very little chances. In fact, the Flyers created a couple of opportunities themselves as a result of the mindless effort with an extra skater. Jake Allen kept the game scoreless. But the failed power play set the tone for the Devils through the remainder of the game.

“I didn’t hate our start at all,” Keefe began to explain. “The power play killed us. The four-minute power play was the worst of the season, and it sucked the life out of our game.”

Not only did the Devils fail on their four-minute advantage, but they also couldn’t convert on the following two power plays they received throughout the game.

The lack of execution was the result of too many individual efforts. Far too often, the Devils got away from their structure and tried to rely solely on their skill. For the John Tortorella-led Flyers, that sort of thing isn’t going to work. It was easy for Devils forward Jesper Bratt to put into words what went wrong with the special teams.

“Even if you’re on the power play, it doesn’t mean you have to start being cute with the puck,” Bratt said. “You sometimes just have to chip it in and win the battles, and then you’re in the zone. Then you can start using your skill. We just didn’t do that good enough.”

The Devils limped into Monday, learning they’d be without captain Nico Hischier who leads the team with 24 goals. Even Jack Hughes is nicked up, and isn’t playing 100% right now.

Yet, that wasn’t an excuse for the Devils’ failure to produce an adequate power play.

“We couldn’t get in [the offensive zone], we couldn’t get another breakout,” Keefe explained. “So that was a challenge. Our execution was off, and then we didn’t adjust to put [the puck] in behind them and go work to get it. It has nothing to do with Nico [being out]. The puck wouldn’t have even touched his stick, since our regular guys couldn’t get us through.”

It wasn’t just the power play that looked disconnected. The Devils were in the negative in terms of chance differential in each of the three periods.

The Flyers made it difficult for the Devils to cleanly transition the puck up ice all night. Keefe shook up the defense pairs for the first time all season. He was short and sweet in response to what he was looking for with that rare change.

“Just to play better,” Keefe muttered.

The Devils play the Flyers again on Wednesday in the second leg of a home-and-home. Certainly, Keefe will expect a better effort than the one his team produced on Monday in the 4-2 loss.

Keefe and the Devils came into the tilt with Philadelphia knowing Tortorella demands structure and no less than 100% from his group. The Devils’ head coach is cut from a similar cloth. However, New Jersey didn’t have the juice against their division rival.

“Credit to Philly. They defended hard, played hard all night, played with urgency. They were just better than us in all areas of the game,” Keefe concluded.