Game Preview #21: New Jersey Devils @ Tampa Bay Lightning

Coming off a second big win against the Florida Panthers, the Devils look to keep the good times rolling in the Sunshine State

The Matchup: New Jersey Devils (12-6-2) @ Tampa Bay Lightning (8-6-1)

The Time: 7:00pm ET

The Broadcast: MSG, FDSNSUN, Devils Radio Hockey Network

Last Devils Game

It happened on Thursday, and it was a 6-2 romp over the defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers. Jesper Bratt led the charge with a hat trick, Stefan Noesen potted two, and Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier also had three-point nights. Jake Allen stopped 25 of 27 shots for the win.

Last Lightning Game

Tampa Bay was also in action on Thursday, and they did what only one other team has been able to do this season: defeat the Winnipeg Jets. The Lightning scored their big 4-1 victory thanks to Jake Guentzel’s two goals, and Andrei Vasilevskiy recorded his 300th career win.

Last Devils-Lightning Game

On October 22nd, we saw arguably the worst game New Jersey has played all season in an 8-5 loss to the Lightning at home. Tampa Bay scored five times in the second period in a contest that was not as close as the final score would indicate.

Making A Statement

After losing in dispiriting fashion to the San Jose Sharks six days ago, the vibes were less than ideal around the Devils. The loss to perhaps the worst team in the league was bad enough, but what made it worse was the fact that New Jersey was about to embark on a hellacious stretch of games. Two in Florida against the Panthers, followed by games versus the Lightning, Hurricanes, and Capitals. That’s a brutal string of games, one in which a lot of people might’ve seen getting 50% of the available points as a victory.

But now here the Devils are, somehow winning both games against the Panthers, a team that seems specifically designed to give the Devils matchup nightmares. In game one, New Jersey weathered the storm, and while they were very much outplayed through roughly the first 30 minutes of the contest, Jacob Markstrom stood tall to give them a chance. The offense capitalized on some key plays, the skaters began tilting the ice back in their favor in the second half, and New Jersey picked up a nice 4-1 victory. Then on Thursday the Devils played arguably their best game of the season. They didn’t just survive against Florida, they went toe to toe and at times even dominated them in a wonderful 6-2 win. The Panthers entered this mini two-game series on a seven game winning streak, and the Devils cooled them off in a big way.

I actually watched the Panthers broadcast for the Thursday game, and it struck me how much the announcers were talking about the Devils’ physicality. They emphasized their speed and skill as well, which has been the hallmark of this team for a few seasons now, but the fact that the broadcasters brought up how much more physical the Devils were than in years past was so nice to hear. The numbers back this up too, take a look at this:

Now, hits aren’t everything, and they aren’t a perfect proxy for playing physical. Not to mention that physicality just for the sake of physicality doesn’t exactly win games. But smart, calculated physicality, like what we’ve seen out of the Panthers since Paul Maurice took over, can be a nightmare to play against. I’m not going to sit here and tell you the Devils all of a sudden are Panthers 2.0, but what I am saying is New Jersey has played with a little more of an edge this season and it’s paid off.

But of course, we can’t forget the speed and skill. Even with the added physicality, that is still to me the defining trait of this team. Now that the Devils have a little more of a physical element to their game, it makes their speed and skill that much more potent. Mixing all of these traits together means the Devils have more ways than one to beat any given team. Whether it’s a track meet or a defensive struggle, New Jersey has shown it can win both so far.

There is still a lot of season left to play, and lots can go wrong. But for now at least, the vibes are back up. Way up. If New Jersey can find consistency with their newfound physicality while not forgetting how to out-skill and out-skate their opponents, we may be looking at a special season.

Jesper Bratt Hat

Congratulations to Jesper Bratt on his hat trick on Thursday. He scored goals at even strength, on the power play, and shorthanded. That’s a rare feat indeed:

Bratt has been sizzling hot lately, so much so that he now leads the club with 24 points. On a team with Jack Hughes on it, not to mention Nico Hischier and Timo Meier, that’s not easy to do. But Bratt has been leading the charge. John took a deep dive into Bratt’s season thus far yesterday if you want a more in-depth analysis on how Bratt has been performing this season, but suffice to say he’s been doing his job quite well.

Bratt’s recent bender (six goals, 11 points in his last six games) is to me a perfect representation of what makes New Jersey such a tough team to play against. At the start of the season, Nico Hischier was unstoppable. He was scoring at will, smothering opponents defensively, and was the primary reason the Devils were winning games. Then he cooled off, but Jack Hughes was there to pick up the slack. Hischier was struggling to score and his line started losing their matchups consistently, but Hughes put up great numbers and his line started winning their matchups. And now while Hughes hasn’t exactly cooled off, Bratt has now arrived on the scene with a boatload of points himself.

As much as I praised the Devils’ upping the commitment to physicality this season, the skill of their top players is what drives the bus at the end of the day. Hischier and Hughes have gone through stretches of domination thus far, and now Bratt is taking his turn. Credit to Bratt for finding another level to his game.

I Expect Better

I was at The Rock when the Devils lost that 8-5 game to the Lightning back in October. Leaving the arena that night, I felt something I hadn’t really felt in a while when watching this team play: disgusted. I thought the effort level was quite frankly an embarrassment, even to my untrained eye I could tell players were not putting in the work they should have been putting in. One of the defining quotes of this era of Devils hockey to me came almost exactly one year ago from Erik Haula. When asked to comment about the team’s struggles at the time, he said, among other things, that the Devils were “not respecting the game”. Here’s the full quote for you:

That spoke volumes to me. It gave the impression that this team thought things would come easy following their wonderful 2022-23 season. Well 2023-24 was an outright disaster and an embarrassment, and the hope was that the team learned its lesson. Things were looking okay until that game against the Lightning, and all of a sudden I felt like I was watching a team that had an effort problem. That is, in my humble opinion, the worst type of problem a professional sports team could have. I was starting to get concerned.

But since then, the Devils have really stepped their game up. They are 7-3-1 since that game against the Lightning, and the compete level has been everything I could’ve asked for and then some. Sure there have been games like the ones against the Flames or the Sharks where New Jersey couldn’t get anything going in a disappointing loss. But I honestly thought those losses were more about the team not being able to execute and just being off their game as opposed to not giving a strong effort.

Tonight, I want revenge. That Tampa Bay game is the low point of the season in my eyes. I want to see New Jersey outwork the Lightning tonight. If they lose the game, so be it, Tampa Bay is still a strong and proud team after all. But I don’t want that loss to come from being outworked. New Jersey has shown a lot of grit and toughness, and willingness to get their hands dirty and do the work no one wants to since the Lightning game. Let’s see them come full circle tonight and outwork Tampa Bay.

Ride The Lightning

On the other side of the coin, Tampa Bay has been a somewhat streaky team since they embarrassed New Jersey back on October 22nd. They followed that game with a loss, but then ripped off three straight victories. But that modest three-game winning streak was followed immediately by a four-game losing streak. And then they won handily against the unbeatable Winnipeg Jets. Go figure.

At 8-6-1 entering tonight, the Lightning are not exactly firing on all cylinders right now. Since their back-to-back Cup victories their roster has been worn down by salary cap casualties, aging veterans, and questionable trade pickups. This is not the Lightning team of a few years ago. That being said, as we saw at The Rock, Tampa Bay can still be a force to be reckoned with.

This is going to absolutely shock you, but Nikita Kucherov leads the team in points. He enters this evening sitting at 11 goals and 24 points in 15 games, which works out to a fantastic 1.60 points per game (over 82 games that comes out to roughly 131 points). He has been the player to watch in Tampa Bay for a long time now, and he continues to be the player to watch now. The Devils’ gameplan needs to begin and end with stopping Kucherov.

Meanwhile, another stat that will absolutely shock you is that Victor Hedman leads the Lightning in average time on ice per game, clocking in at 23:54 per contest. At 34-years old, Hedman is not the Norris caliber defenseman he once was. But he is still a big time defenseman who can make life difficult for whoever he is matched up against.

Speaking of matchups, I will be curious to see who head coach Jon Cooper deploys his shutdown pair of Erik Cernak and Ryan McDonagh against tonight. According to Natural Stat Trick, those two have played 202:40 together at 5-on-5 this season. They aren’t exactly winning their matchups though, as they enter with a Corsi For% of 48.99%, and an Expected Goals For% of 45.36%. So despite their lofty reputations, this is a winnable matchup for New Jersey. If I had to guess, I would say Cooper wants Cernak and McDonagh deployed against the Jack Hughes line, which means the Nico Hischier line might draw the Victor Hedman assignment. If that’s the case, it will be incumbent on New Jersey’s bottom six to win their matchups against the third pair for the Lightning.

Potential Lineup

Here’s how the Lightning lined up against Winnipeg on Thursday:

I’m not sure if Tampa Bay will go 11-7 again, but if they do, expect this lineup tonight.

Your Take

What will you be looking out for during tonight’s game? Who on the Devils do you want to see step up? Who on the Lightning is the player to watch for you? As always, thanks for reading!