The Finger of Blame

The ownership and Lou for not addressing the major weaknesses all year and also Sutter and Marty. Sutter refused to play Weekes all year. This isn't the first time Marty has looked worn out come playoff time. Marty is at fault because he never wants to sit during the season. As a veteran he should know better. Lundquist sat many games this year and he looked much fresher and sharper than Marty the whole series. Marty is not getting any younger. He must take a rest. He is into setting personal records but now it's affecting the team during playoff time. That is why he should take some blame too.

I blame it all on Andy Greene   cause I'm a hater.

Actually - I really can't complain too much about the Devils play in this series - they gave it 100% right up to the end.  No bounces went their way in this series...a few soft goals let in, turnovers and give aways that led to Rangers goals and a bad break here and there.  These things are going to happen in a 7 game series - but what it comes down to is that the Rangers capitalized on those opportunities when they got them - the Devils did not.

Everytime the Devils had an answer it also seemed like the Rangers came right back with one of their own - there was never a point when the Devils had momentum for any length of time and that will drain anyone after a while.  As much as I hate to say it - the Rangers deserve a lot of credit for winning this series....

I  am as dissapointed as the rest of the true fans here,I don't get to watch that many games either,due to I live in Florida.I can only go by what I read about them and so forth,And I would have to blame Lou on this one.Since they started with the salary cap,Lou has'nt done anything but let our core players go due to his innability of not being able to calculate $$$$$ That's just my opinion BTW.I won't get on the subject of his knowledge,or lack of knowing how to make a trade.Disgusting effort on his part.

It's very hard to swallow that we had a 99 point season,and all of us true Devils fans "knew" we were not a good team going into the playoffs.

I sure felt that way.

Blame can go around and around.  But in reality lets face it, the line  combinations going into the last month of the season was terrible.  Geo playing with Madden and Pandolfo!?!? Cmon those guys are grinders Geo needs someone that can pass him the puck.  Then we got Zubrus between Rupp and Clarkson.  Rupp who is at best a 4th liner and Clarkson who should be playing between Madden and Panolfo. 

The line combinations didn't get better untill Game 3 of the playoffs, what was the result?  10 Goals in 3 games.  If we would have done it sooner we would have gotten a playoff match up we wanted. You can see the Devils were just heading for trouble in the last weeks of the season. 

"In Lou We Trust" -- he needs to do something about the team and its goal scoring problems.  We win games that's true, but come playoffs were missing that clutch guy that can score a necessary goal.  Who remembers the great days of Jeff Fresien??? or the A-Line?!?

Finally,  #30 he's amazing.  But look at the other playoff games, goalies have been standing on their heads making amazing saves.  Brodeur can top all of that, but he didn't, to many soft goals...Jagr 5 hole last night...the Staal goal in game 4....cmon give me a break he was just tired....We picked up Weeks this year, while he's not an amazing goalie, if you let him start 15 games, he would have at least 7 or 8 wins....Sutter needed to save your best player for the playoffs.

OKAY SORRY FOR THIS I'M VENTING, JUST A LITTLE PISSED THAT WE LOSE TO THE Rangers OUT OF ALL TEAMS IN THE PLAYOFFS IN THE FIRST ROUND, and TO HEAR THEM IN OUR BUILDING CHEERING LIKE THAT JUST DISGUSTING!!

who to blame for the first round loss ? thats a good question   how about blaming the players that didn't have the number 30 on their back ? how about blaming the Rangers for being better then the Devils when it counted ? 46 wins and 99 points while making the playoffs is not a bad season   their were a couple of Devils teams that scored over 100 pts won the divison and didn't make it out of the first round either ( and BTW those teams had the likes of Stevens, Dano, and Neids ) so should we have come down on them as hard too ? how about the the Devils team that led the league in goals forced and had 2 40 goal scorers on it, they didn't win the cup either   

I'm just as heart broken over the way this year ended as everybody else but blaming the management for this is totally uncalled for    and I'm sure this disappointment is going to be tossed around here for awhile   so be it    in the meantime about 6 months till the next drop of the puck for a game that counts for the Devils again   Here's to next season !   

In Lou, I've lost trust. Ever since the strike, the Devils have gotten worse and worse, slowly. Losing Stevens, means we've lost our enforcer, and White is $3 million wasted, especially since he can't see out of one eye. He can't handle the puck and he should've dropped Avery on the ice when he was screening Brodeur. Losing Neidermayer and Rafalski have left us with no offense from the blue line, so even when we have a power-play, the defense only has to worry about our forwards. (Although he got hurt, Souray would've made a huge difference). Zuubrus was money wasted as well. He's a poor mans Madden, and because he had one good season, we waste 3.5 mil a year on him.

But my favorite Lou blunder was the trade deadline. At the time, we have the 3rd best defense, and 7 worst offense, and approx. $4 million available to spend. So what does Lou do??? He gets....another defenseman (adding less than a milion to our cap), who can't score. Nice job Lou. I'm not saying he wasn't an improvement, but was Lou watching the games??? How many times did he need to see us score 0 or 1 goals in a game before it lit a fire under his ass.

I'm not saying we needed Hossa, because he's notorious for disappearing in the playoffs, but Brian Campbell would've solved a lot of problems. Yes he would've been expensive, but he would've solved a lot of issues. He would've spread out the defense, giving people like Parise and Gionta more room to create, and being that we have #30 in the net, his defensive defiencies would've gone unnoticed.