Devils back against the wall-lose Game Four

Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The New Jersey Devils struck early on a 5 on 3 power play when Kyle Palmieri gave New Jersey a 1-0 lead in the first period.
That strike would be all the Devils could muster as the next two goals belonged to the Tampa Bay Lightning before a late empty-net goal for the 3-1 win for the visitors.
Game five is in Tampa Saturday afternoon when the Lightning can clinch the series with a win.

Hell Raisers

1) The Devils did score their only goal on the power play, but they finished 1 of 7 on the night.
The weakness of the power play and not turning more chances against an excellent team into scores isn't going to help the chances of pulling an upset

2) The hit on Sami Vatanen by Nikita Kucherov sent Vatanen from the game looked like it hit the head (and some of the shoulder) and should have been a penalty.
Vatanen would not return and the Devils paid the price with a weakened defensive squad.
Should have definitely been a penalty.

3) The game could have been socked away for Tampa earlier instead of playing so much time with a one goal lead.
Tampa scored on a goal by J.T. Miller, but a canny challenge by John Hynes showed that the Lightning were offsides before entering the zone.
That challenge allowed much more drama than the game deserved.

4) I thought Cory Schneider played well again in net with 34 saves and Schneider didn't allow a bad goal in either case.
Schneider should return in net for game five.

5) Tampa Bay has taken a ton of cheap shots in this series and as they progress through the playoffs, they will run into a team that is more physical than the Devils and thump them right back.
New Jersey is a scrappy team, but one that isn't overwhelmingly so and as a result, Tampa Bay has been taking liberties.
The game has passed by the one-dimensional enforcer type but on nights like these, I wish that the ghost of Troy Crowder or the "Polish Hammer" Kryzstof Oliwa could return for a shift or two to put some players in their place.

6) The Devils did manage to shut down the Tampa power play and didn't allow the Lightning to score a goal on the advantage for the first time in the series.
So as Bill Murray uttered in Caddyshack "So I (we) got that going for me (them).

7) Now. it's pretty clear what needs to happen and I'm not sure that it has ever happened in hockey history (I'm not looking it up,I have another wrap up to write!)- the 8th seed has to win three games in a row over the one seed with two of the three on the road.
Rough road to hoe.
How does it happen?
Hope that Cory Schneider can continue his level of play, the Devils can hang around physically (without being really stupid about it) and the power play needs to improve.
All of those things need to happen and then we'll see...