{"id":381916,"date":"2026-01-01T16:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T16:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/381916\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T16:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T16:43:14","slug":"devils-coach-rips-team-for-lack-of-balls-after-captains-surprising-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/381916\/","title":{"rendered":"Devils coach rips team for lack of \u2018balls\u2019 after captain\u2019s surprising fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Devils<\/a> coach Sheldon Keefe<\/a> praised center Nico Hischier <\/a>and subsequently ripped his team for their lack of \u201cballs\u201d after New Jersey\u2019s 4-0 loss to the Maple Leafs on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Keefe\u2019s pointed comments were referencing Hischier\u2019s brief skirmish with 6-foot-3, 230-pound Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies in the third period of New Jersey\u2019s 4-0 loss on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

HAVE YOU JOINED OUR YOUTUBE PAGE? DEVILS REPORTER RYAN NOVOZINSKY BREAKS DOWN EVERY GAME \u2014 WITH YOUR HELP<\/a><\/p>\n

The fight was one to forget for the Devils, with Knies almost instantly dropping Hischier, but Keefe still dished the captain high praise when asked about it after the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, do I want our captain and one of our best players fighting when we\u2019re down 2-0 in the third period? Absolutely not,\u201d Keefe said. \u201cBut do we need some guys to step up to show some emotion and show some balls and play with some urgency and competitiveness and step out of character? Yeah, we need more of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo to that end, I like it. I like that Nico did it and hopefully it rubs off on the rest of the group in a positive way. I didn\u2019t think that it did in that moment, but you want to talk about gut checks, there\u2019s one. Your captain\u2019s out there taking on a big guy stepping out of character. We\u2019ll see what we have with out group. But we need more guys that are going to show a little bit more if you\u2019re not going to score, give is a little bit more competitively and physically and show that you\u2019re working to find your way. There\u2019s not enough of that. We\u2019re just kind of going about our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for our Speaking of the Devils newsletter here<\/a>! Get 10 inside-Devils notes in your inbox each Monday at 10 a.m. ET!<\/p>\n

The Devils are in a bit of a free fall, going winless in their last four games and dropping to 20-17-2 on the season. Their last win came 12 days ago at the time of publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Devils coach Sheldon Keefe praised center Nico Hischier and subsequently ripped his team for their lack of \u201cballs\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-381916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}