Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Elias rips Devils teammates that ‘want to do it by themselves out there’

patrikeliasgetty

The Devils have lost three of five and were outscored 10-3 in their last two, so it wasn’t much of a surprise to hear alternate captain Patrik Elias fume last night.

“We’ve got guys that want to do it by themselves out there,” he said after Tuesday’s loss to St. Louis, per the New Jersey Star-Ledger. “That’s all.”

Elias wouldn’t name names, though there was no lack of candidates following a listless effort against the Blues in which the Devils mustered just 23 shots and wet 0-for-4 on the power play.

From an overall perspective, it seems New Jersey’s problem this year is consistency -- or a lack thereof. The club’s longest winning streak of the season is three games and it’s occurred just once, during a stretch in mid-November where the Devils beat Pittsburgh, Anaheim and Los Angeles (the latter two victories coming in overtime).

Since then, the club has failed to get on any sort of roll. Check out January alone:

DevilsSked

Elias’ frustration probably comes from the fact that, despite the inconsistency, the Devils are still pretty close to a playoff position. They head into Wednesday’s action just two points back of Carolina for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, though the ‘Canes have a game in hand.

Elias says the Devils have the talent to be a playoff team, so long as they play the right way.

“We have good enough players to win hockey games. We’ve done that in the past and in a lot of the 54 games we’ve played this year,” he explained. “But guys can’t do it by themselves.”