New Jersey Devils bench boss Lindy Ruff wasn't pleased following his club's 4-0 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday.

"They outskated us, they outcompeted us, they wanted it more," Ruff said postgame, per team reporter Amanda Stein. "At the end of the night, we got exactly what we deserved."

The Red Wings outshot the Devils 28-16 and controlled 54.55% of the expected goals in the one-sided affair, per Natural Stat Trick.

The loss is New Jersey's fifth in its last six games. The club is 8-8-1 on the season, second-last in the Metropolitan Division.

The Devils are still without captain Nico Hischier and top winger Timo Meier. However, Ruff said there should be no excuses and took responsibility for not preparing his team.

"Our puck play wasn't good, it wasn't crisp. It's on me to get them in a better place, it's on me," Ruff said. "I don't care what the situation is, we've got to play a lot better than that."

Defenseman John Marino echoed his coach's comments about the club's poor puck management.

"We are just shooting ourselves in the foot," Marino said.

Veteran winger Tyler Toffoli, New Jersey's key offseason acquisition, also shouldered the blame for some sloppy play.

"I turned the puck over twice, they went down and scored," Toffoli said. "Definitely not good enough, very disappointed in myself and my game tonight. I for sure take the blame on two of those goals."

Toffoli has been productive with nine goals and six assists in 17 games thus far but owns a minus-10 rating on the campaign - second-worst on the team.

But poor goaltending from Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid has arguably been New Jersey's biggest issue. The team's .875 save percentage entered Wednesday as the third-worst mark in the league.

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