The losing streak continues for the Devils as they fall to the Nashville Predators 4-3 in overtime. Overall, this was an extremely disappointing game because the Devils certainly played good enough to win. For the most part. At the very least they stopped some of the bleeding by picking up a point.

There were no new negatives that sprung up from this game. Actually, that isn’t true, Keith Kinkaid has a had a strong start for the Devils but he killed them last night. His positioning on the second and fourth goals was terrible. They were both fairly basic saves if he engaged the shooter better. The first goal was all around terrible and in a game where the Devils lost by one goal, it is very easy to point to it as a major misstep. On the bright side, it is sounding like Corey Schneider is almost ready to return from his conditioning stint.

Pavel Zacha’s lack of production continues to be emblematic of a larger problem: the Devils lack of secondary scoring. Zacha has been great defensively at least, but the Devils need somebody to step up and score. Hall-Hischier-Palmieri is one of the top lines in the league but they can’t play every shift. Zacha and Johansson need to turn some of their nice plays into points soon.

It is beginning to look like John Quenneville is running out of rope in New Jersey. The organization game him a fairly blatant ultimatum by sending him down to the AHL, pretty much telling him to start producing or hit the road. Quenneville must be letting the pressure get to him because he looked pretty bad last night while also, once again, not contributing to the offense. He was just demoted back to the AHL today and while we could very well see him back with the big team in the future, he is going to have to earn his next promotion back to the big team.

The positives were the top line again, along with Damon Severson and Miles Wood. Nico Hischier has finally started converting some of his scoring chances into goals. He had two beautiful deflections this game. The top line continues to show they have the ability to run over any other team’s top defensive pairing.

Damon Severson has returned to form. He is looking like the solid offensive defenseman we all thought he was a couple years back. Severson had a goal and a bunch of great scoring chances during the start of this season.

Miles Wood was able to generate a lot of shots while he was on the ice. Sure, they weren’t all great quality but shots are shots, it is nice to see someone not on the top line generate a high volume of shots.

This game just pointed out flaws the Devils have had over the past three games. Lack of secondary scoring, not holding onto leads, and lack of discipline all played a major role last night. They need to clean it up fast if they want to right this ship.