Devils Latest Devils down in whole When the Devils were amazing everyone, leading the league despite missing as much as one-third of their lineup, they were a one-trick pony, chipping in the puck whenever they faced blue-line -- or even red-line -- opposition. They're not the same team anymore. They are actually tons better. But... New York Post - Articles Back-to-back losses spark renewed sense of urgency for NJ Devils Veterans challenged to recreate winning atmosphere Saed Hindash/The Star-LedgerIlya Kovalchuk said he has been impressed by the team's initiative to call a meeting after two straight losses.Ilya Kovalchuk never remembers a team meeting being called after two straight losses during his 7... The Star Ledger - Articles Deep Devils Thoughts Some thoughts we have on the Devils lately: – We are very lucky that our team has, every year since the lockout, given us the opportunity to watch them be the best team in hockey for a substantial stretch of time. Not every fan gets to say that, and we really enjoy it. We don’t want... Interchangeable Parts - Articles T-H-E Most Important Game of the Season In plain English, this IS the most important game of the campaign -- so far, at least -- for both John Tortorella's skaters as well as Jacques Lemaire's stickhandlers. MSG Networks - Articles Team meeting could hold key to turnaround Kovy says team approach needed for final 18 games. The Devils see this as a big week to improve their fortunes. They held a meeting after Tuesday’s practi... newjerseydevils.com - Articles NJ Devils winger Zach Parise to show off Olympic silver medal He'll be at ice cream parlor Thursday Andrew Mills/The Star-LedgerZach Parise (with head in hands) is shown after Team USA's loss to Canada in the Olympic gold medal game.Zach Parise did everything he could to bring a gold medal back from the Olympics in Vancouver. It was Parise's... The Star Ledger - Articles

Back-to-back losses spark renewed sense of urgency for NJ Devils

Veterans challenged to recreate winning atmosphere

Saed Hindash/The Star-LedgerIlya Kovalchuk said he has been impressed by the team's initiative to call a meeting after two straight losses.Ilya Kovalchuk never remembers a team meeting being called after two straight losses during his 7 1/2 seasons with the Atlanta Thrashers. A prolonged slump like six wins in 20 games seemed normal for a club that made the playoffs just once in nine years.

So when the Devils held a dressing room meeting after practice Tuesday and coach Jacques Lemaire implored his players to pull together as a team both on and off the ice, Kovalchuk was impressed.

“I love it, because in Atlanta it was a little different,” Kovalchuk said. “Here, when the team loses one or two games, it’s a big deal. That’s how it’s supposed to be if you want to win.

“I’m very excited. Even when we skated on the same day we landed. I think those things should build us as a team.”

Something needed to be done because the Devils enter Wednesday night’s game with the Rangers at the Prudential Center as a team in trouble. Lemaire said he was disgusted when he watched the video of Sunday night’s loss in Edmonton and he challenged his veterans who have played on winning teams to recreate that kind of atmosphere and commitment.

“He got his message across,” Patrik Elias said when asked if Lemaire was angry. “He wanted to make sure we got it.”

The concern goes beyond back-to-back losses in Calgary and Edmonton. The Devils are 6-12-2 since Jan. 12 and have fallen five points behind the first-place Penguins in the Atlantic Division.

“We probably should’ve done it a long time ago,” captain Jamie Langenbrunner said of the meeting. “For whatever reason, we wanted to believe it would just be fixed. It wasn’t for a lack of wanting to fix it or knowing that something needed to be fixed. We — I think all of us — believed, ‘Oh, we’ll snap out of it.’

“I think we’ve been missing that peer pressure. We’ve all backed off on demanding from each other. The coach can push buttons all day, but it comes down to peers pushing the buttons. That’s what drives a winning team in my opinion. We’ve gotten away from that. We let things get away.”

No longer.

“Everyone had in their minds, ‘This will blow over without addressing it,’ and that’s not how it works,” Zach Parise said. “It’s the only way to address it. It’s a meeting we as a team should’ve had a while ago. There are a lot of different things. It’s off the ice. It’s on the ice. It’s away from the rink. Things need to change for the better.”

When the Devils flew home after Sunday’s loss in Edmonton, they landed at 5 a.m. and were on the ice for practice by 3 p.m. They practiced again Tuesday.

“You have to work at it. You have to get all the guys on the same page,” Lemaire said. “You have to get a team, what describes a winning team. Players that have been on winning teams know what it is.

“When you’ve won, you know what it took to get there. You know what it took for the group to get together to get there. These guys can describe what a team is. We need some of that.”

Langenbrunner said there is no friction in the dressing room.

“It’s not from a lack of chemistry due to guys not liking each other. It’s due to, for whatever reason, we haven’t been hanging it out on the line like we need to,“ he said.

“With the Olympic break where it was, a lot of things got put on the back burner or pushed back. You could point at that as the reason why the focus wasn’t there. Now, there is no other thing. I think all of us knew that. It was nothing else than ourselves. Sunday’s game kind of put it right out there in the open for everyone to see.”

Rich Chere may be reached at rchere@starledger.com

Deep Devils Thoughts

Some thoughts we have on the Devils lately:

– We are very lucky that our team has, every year since the lockout, given us the opportunity to watch them be the best team in hockey for a substantial stretch of time. Not every fan gets to say that, and we really enjoy it. We don’t want to sound ungrateful, or suggest that we don’t appreciate those five-, six-, seven-, whatever-week runs where we can’t help but think about how not a single team in the league could take four of seven against our boys. But the problem with the Devils doing that every season is that they haven’t timed that run very well since ‘05-’06. And they fall off a fucking cliff every February. You know what makes a colossally awful stretch run even more interminable than the lousy hockey is on its own? Having to watch that lousy hockey while knowing — having incontrovertible proof — that the very same group of players and coaches that are crapping the bed night after night are capable of being the best team in the league. So yeah, what we’re saying is that we wouldn’t mind the annual March Swoon quite so much if it wasn’t always immediately following the annual “the Devils are really, really, really awesome” non-swoon.

– You know what else is making this year’s Swoon so insufferable? Chico. We realize he’s under orders from MSG to say only glowing things about the home team (or at least, we’re assuming he is, based on how the other MSG announcers act), but still. Aren’t there ways to do that without insulting the viewers’ intelligence so grievously? When the Devils got shut out by the worst team in the league in the game after they gave up five straight goals to the Flames, and Chico announced to us that he was shocked by the outcome, we finally reached our wits’ ends. That Oilers game was many things, but shocking was not one of them. We are seriously considering watching tomorrow’s Devils/Rangers game with the sound off.

– Hey, you know what’s good, though? We didn’t get Scott Niedermayer at the trade deadline.

– You know what’s bad, though? We did get Martin Skoula. Are we sure he’s not Niclas Havelid in a Martin Skoula outfit? Or, worse yet, Phil Housley?

– We know the Devils aren’t listening to us, because they don’t listen to anything this time of year other than the siren song of their vacation homes. But if they could hear us, we would like to say just this: “Shoot the fucking puck, you sad fucking fucks.” The are killing us with this refusal to shoot. If this was what they were planning to become, Lou should have just kept Gomez and Gionta. (Yeah, ouch.)

– But on the bright side, we hear that Lemaire is bringing back the Showdown at the Triple Z Ranch line! That’ll be fun for the one or two shifts they stay together.

– There is something that brings us constant joy during Devils games lately, though. It’s that Just For Men Touch of Gray commercial where the dude gets age discriminated against and sexually harassed during his job interview. Who wouldn’t want to work at that company? If only Just For Men Touch of Gray worked for women, we’d be applying there right this minute.

– We were out to lunch yesterday, so we want to wish Mags a super-happy day after her birthday today. Gefeliciteerd met je verjaardaag, Mags! (Only add some Dutch in there to make it say “day after your birthday” instead of just plain “birthday”.)

– Also, let’s all promise to be best friends forever, m’kay? Good luck in college, everyone!