Ruff: 'The Time is Now' | BLOG

The Devils battled hard after falling behind 3-0 in Winnipeg just eight minutes into their Friday night contest against the Jets.
A Damon Severson power-play goal started the spark. Jack Hughes followed with his first goal since the season opener with just 23.7 seconds remaining in the first period. Two quick strikes - 39 seconds apart - in the opening 76 seconds of the second period flipped a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead for the Devils.
From there, though, a familiar enemy creeped into the Devils game: poor puck management.
"I'm tired of talking about puck management, but we have to manage the puck better to take that next step," head coach Lindy Ruff said. "In a game where we had a 4-3 lead, to manage the puck the way we did invited danger. In the end it really hurt us."

Poor decision making and turnovers led to five unanswered goals to Winnipeg in an eventual 8-4 loss to the Jets.
"It's what you call hockey suicide," Ruff said. "We self-inflicted the pain and at the end it hurt us as a hockey club, and we end up losing the game.
"Five of the goals were self-inflicted, where we have the puck and aren't really under duress and the puck ends up in the back of our neck."
The issue, Ruff said, isn't about battle and effort. The Devils are trying. They've had a high level of compete and effort. The physical effort is there, but the mental battle is where the Devils are falling short.
"We're getting killed with smarts. We really are," Ruff said. "We're getting killed on the execution part of what we do with the puck.
"When I'm talking the mental battle, I'm talking about that decision. The mental decision not to turn over the puck at the offensive blue line or making the right decision getting the puck out of our end. The puck was on our stick and we had time to make those decisions and we erred on the side of trying a play that is ill advised. That is the mental part of it."
The Devils have taken a big step from last season. They're offense is more productive and they've produced a much better record. However, becoming more consistent in their decision-making and execution is the next marker as the franchise continues to progress into the future.
"Can we as a team take the next step where we continue to do the right things?" Ruff said. "The time is now to really get consistent with what we do with the puck in key areas of the ice, and eliminate some of those big errors that have really cost us in hockey games."