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The postseason is clearly an entirely different beast than the regular season. That being said, what have the New Jersey Devils been doing right and what have they been doing wrong? Hopefully most of you have let the anger of the game three loss settle a little and are ready to listen to some reason. If I fail at convincing you it's not that bad, I'll just throw a few numbers at you, they don't have opinions. Check it out after the jump. (The website jump, don't do any jumping yourself, it's a seven game series)
Special Teams
The Bad News:
The Devils have the worst penalty kill of all 16 teams in the playoffs. Seriously... their PK is at 40%. After a record setting regular season penalty kill, the Devils have fallen from grace. The Panthers however have the 10th ranked PK at 81.8%. The Devils have a decent powerplay at 18.2%, but the Panthers have the best powerplay in the playoffs at 60%. Special teams is clearly a problem for the Devils. So what's the solution? Stop taking penalties. When the Panthers take a penalty; settle down and control the zone. Don't take shots from the point when a player is skating up on you and your shot will richochet off their shin pads and out of the zone. The special teams is a serious problem. If the Devils would have performed marginally better on special teams in games one through three, they would be threatening the Panthers with elimination tonight.
The Good News:
For all the pathetic special teams performance, the Devils are taking the least amount of penalties in the playoffs. The Devils are averaging 8 PIM per game, while the Panthers are averaging 8.7 PIM per game. So, if the Devils up their PK just a little bit and continue taking eight minutes of penalties, the bleeding will stop.
Defense
The Bad News:
Read:Anton Volchenkov
The Good News:
Adam Larsson ?!
Scoring
The Bad News:
The Devils are in the middle of the playoff pack in terms of goals per game with 2.67. This is a decent number, but the Panthers are doing better. The Panthers are averaging 3.33 goals per game. If the Devils are going to win this series, they need to score more than the Panthers.
The Good News:
The goods news is that the news above isn't so bad. If you look at even strength scoring, The Devils have 2 goals at even strength to every one goal the Panthers get at even strength. The Panthers score at a rate of 0.5 goals for every Devils goal at even strength. Hopefully, in seven games, this statistic will matter more than the special teams statistics.
More Good News:
The Devils are not allergic to shooting the puck. The Devils are averaging 29.3 shots per game. Compared to the Panthers who are shooting 25.3 times a game.The law of averages states that the more you shoot, the more you should score. Therefore, if this trend continues, the Devils should score more.
Other
The Devils have not been very good in the faceoff circle: 46.6%, the Panthers: 53.4%. but it could be worse.
Goaltending
The Bad News:
Scott Clemmensen could be unleashed on the Devils.
The OK News:
Martin Brodeur: 3.40 GAA I 0.869 SV%
The Good News:
Jose Theodore: 3.84 GAA I 0.884 SV%
Any other bad news / good news I missed?