TORONTO _ This game will not be commemorated in the Hockey Hall of Fame. And if it is, well, just keep it hidden somewhere in the back.
Devils legend Martin Brodeur dropped the ceremonial puck on the 21st annual Hall of Fame Game and the goalie who idolized him growing up turned in a performance the Hall-of-Famer might approve of, even if the score ended up somewhat lopsided. But aside from Keith Kinkaid's 25 saves, the Devils appeared overmatched and overwhelmed at times in a 6-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday at Scotiabank Arena.
Give credit where it's due, they didn't roll over and stop skating after the Leafs went up 3-0 in the second period, as they had in recent games. But they gave up too many odd-man rushes, they turned the puck over in their own and even when they did get sustained offensive pressure Frederik Andersen (38 saves) didn't let them do any damage.
The Devils did some good things in the third period, but the mountain was ultimately too steep to climb and things fell apart midway through the period. Ben Lovejoy fanned on a puck and Tyler Ennis took it behind the net, deked Stefan Noesen and snapped one over Kinkaid to give Toronto a 6-1 lead.
Nikita Zaitsev appeared to score later in the third but it was waved off when Frederik Gauthier clipped Miles Wood with a high stick.
The wheels came off when the Leafs scored twice in a span of less than two minutes to go up 5-1 in the second. This came after Travis Zajac scored at the 7:23 mark of the second to put the Devils on the board and give them a fighting chance.
But Andreas Johnsson scored off the rush at 15:44, and at 17:27 Morgan Reilly intercepted an errant clearing attempt at the blue line and rocketed it through traffic so quickly that Kinkaid didn't even see it coming.
John Tavares, a player the Devils are all too familiar with, opened the scoring in the first period when he potted a low feed from Ron Hainsey. Nazem Kadri scored 1:52 into play to make it 2-0 and Hainsey, Lindholm and Connor Brown went tic-tac-toe just over five minutes into the period to give Toronto a 3-0 advantage.
The Devils are now 6-7-1 and have lost five of their last seven. That record-tying start they had in October has been erased. It doesn't matter what was done a month ago, the only thing that matters is how they move forward. They thought they were out of the slump five days ago after a resounding win in Pittsburgh but it's now become clear that the Devils aren't out of the woods just yet.
The problem is that it's still unclear as to just what it will take to get them past this dismal period of play.
