NEWARK — Human instinct is to bear down and do whatever it takes to protect a one goal lead. Taylor Hall said the Devils need to fight through that thought.
On the heels of a 4-3 loss the Calgary Flames on Friday, where the Devils surrendered a one-goal third-period lead before losing in overtime , Hall said the Devils need to learn to put teams away with their offense.
“Coming into the third period with a lead, you should win a majority of those games,” Hall told NJ Advance Media. “For whatever reason, I wish we would really step on the pedal and increase it to a two or three-goal lead and not have to play the last four, five minutes with a ton of stress.”
Flames take 4-3 OT win over Devils
To be fair, the Devils have done that in some instances — they turned a 2-1 lead in to a 4-1 lead in an eventual 4-3 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday. But more often than not, they’ve hunkered down to protect late one-goal leads in their own end.
Hall also said one strong offensive finish is not enough. It needs to be replicated in multiple games in a short stretch before it becomes habit.
“It’s just having confidence in what we’ve done up to that point to get ourselves a lead,” Hall said. “Once we do it once or twice, I think it will really set it. But that’s what separates teams in this league. You clamp down for sure, but you don’t play safe. And we’ve got to go after wins.”
Forward Adam Henrique offered a similar sentiment, saying the Devils need to break through the human instinct to play more conservative while protecting a late lead.
“At times it’s come back on us, where we just sit back and defend and hope for the win,” Henrique said. “We’ve talked about staying on our game, staying on our forecheck, putting pucks in and not really adjusting anything. Really just going out and taking the win instead of just sitting back for it.”
Chris Ryan may be reached at cryan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisRyan_NJ. Find NJ.com Devils on Facebook.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
