The New Jersey Devils opener wasn't what anyone expected.
In their 3-0 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers Saturday night, the team failed to put much pressure on Ilya Bryzgalov and the Flyers defense. They put 20 shots on the Philadelphia goalie, and many of them weren't high pressure saves. The team also routinely turned the puck over, a problem they'll look to solve today.
"We obviously have some things we have to work on," coach Peter DeBoer told Tom Gulitti of The Bergen Record during yesterday's practice. "The things that we want to fix right off the bat is we have to be a team that doesn't beat itself. I think we turned the puck over an exorbitant amount of times last night [against Philadelphia]."
The Hurricanes head into today's matchup on a two-game losing streak. They've allowed nine goals in those two losses, the most recent a 4-3 overtime loss to the Washington Capitals. DeBoer and Carolina head coach Paul Maurice are good friends in the offseason, but won't let that spill over into today's game.
"I think we're past the spot where there's anything extra other than two critical points for teams in the conference," Deboer told Gulitti. "They haven't been off to a great start with one point (0-0-1) in their first (two games) and we obviously weren't happy with our (first game). So, I think you're going to see two desperate teams going at it."
Johan Hedberg will get his first start of the season. "The Moose" went 3-0 against the Hurricanes last season.