Game Preview #40: New Jersey Devils @ Anaheim Ducks

The Devils open up their annual California road trip with a New Year’s Eve date with the Ducks

The Matchup: New Jersey Devils (24-12-3) @ Anaheim Ducks (14-17-4)

The Time: 8:00pm ET

The Broadcast: MSGSN, Victory+, Devil’s Radio Network

Last Devils Game

New Jersey finished up a home-and-home against the Hurricanes in Carolina on Saturday, losing 5-2 in a chippy match. Paul Cotter and Ondrej Palat were the goal scorers for the Devils in the loss.

Last Ducks Game

Anaheim was in action on Sunday hosting the Edmonton Oilers, and they skated away with a 5-3 victory. Trailing 3-1 in the second period, the Ducks scored the final four goals of the game to notch the comeback win. Robby Fabbri, Mason McTavish, and Cutter Gauthier each registered a goal and an assist.

Last Devils-Ducks Game

It happened on October 27th at The Rock, and it was a decisive 6-2 win for the Devils. Stefan Noesen led the way with two goals. This was also the game Curtis Lazar was injured in, causing him to miss about a month and a half with a knee injury.

California Dreaming

Dreaming about a lot of wins, that is. The road trip actually started with the game in Carolina on Saturday, but now comes the heavy travel portion of the trip. New Jersey will take on the Ducks, Kings, and Sharks wrapping around the New Year. Then they’ll travel north for a date with the Seattle Kraken before heading back east to close out the road trip with a game against the New York Rangers.

The Kings are a very good team, but the rest of this trip presents an opportunity for the Devils to bank a lot of points. It’s something Chris touched on yesterday, and I agree that these are mostly winnable games. The Sharks are a terrible team, and the Kraken and Rangers are wallowing in mediocrity with the Rangers playing well below that level as of late. And tonight’s opponent, the Ducks, might not be as bad as the Sharks, but they’re not far off. New Jersey has a chance to do some serious damage over the rest of this trip.

But of course, this is a league of parity. Any team can beat any other team on any given night. In fact we saw this play out last year when New Jersey travelled to Anaheim, when the Devils lost 4-3 despite outshooting the Ducks by an utterly bewildering margin of 55-23. Read that again. New Jersey really outshot Anaheim 55-23. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Devils won the Expected Goals For battle in all situations by a mark of 5.66-1.67. Lukas Dostal decided to play the game of his life, Nico Daws allowed four goals on 14 shots and was pulled for Akira Schmid, and that was all she wrote. Jack Hughes also failed to convert on a penalty shot in the final seconds of regulation that would have sent the game to overtime, the cherry on top of the sundae of frustration. I actually happened to be at that game last season, and while my trip to southern California was overall very pleasant, that game made me want to rip my hair out.

So my point is, the any given night cliche is real. On paper the Devils should handle the Ducks quite easily, just like they did in October. But New Jersey cannot afford to overlook Anaheim. Take them seriously, and two points should be there for the taking.

Off The Schneid

As noted above, Paul Cotter scored in Carolina on Saturday. It was his first goal since November 12th against the Florida Panthers. A month and a half between goals is a long, long time, so it was nice to see Cotter finally find the back of the net again.

If the rest of the bottom-6 could follow suit, that would be much appreciated. Aside from Dawson Mercer, the rest of New Jersey’s bottom-6 has had trouble scoring for a while now. Here is the last time each of them have tallied a goal:

Justin Dowling: November 30 vs. WSH

Erik Haula: November 25 vs. NSH

Tomas Tatar: November 23 vs. WSH

Curtis Lazar: October 25 vs. NYI

Nate Bastian: October 22 vs. TBL

Kurtis MacDermid: Nope

Granted, injuries have played a role in Lazar and Bastian going as long as they have since scoring. But the point remains that the offensive production has fallen almost entirely on the top-6. Even the defensemen have been more productive than the third and fourth lines. The bottom-6 has done their jobs as far as defensive effort and controlling the run of play, so it’s not like they’re contributing nothing. And it’s reasonable to believe their lack of goal-scoring is very much a case of simple bad puck luck. But even if the effort is there, it would really, really help New Jersey if the bottom-6 can find their scoring touch again.

The Seeds Are Planted, But They Aren’t Bearing Fruit

Anaheim is once again one of the worst teams in the league. By both total points and points percentage, they are sixth-worst in the NHL. The Ducks have been collecting top draft picks for a few seasons now, but thus far they don’t have much to show for them.

One of the primary culprits of their struggles this season is their offense. At 2.46 goals per game, Anaheim is second-worst in the entire league in that category, in front of only the Nashville Predators. Troy Terry leads the club with 27 points. Next up? Ryan Strome and Frank Vatrano with 17 points each. That is absolutely dismal production for a team that has played 35 games thus far.

What might be worse is none of those three players are the highly ranked prospects Anaheim has been acquiring for a few seasons now. Take a look:

Mason McTavish (selected third overall in 2021): five goals, 16 points in 29 games.

Cutter Gauthier (selected fifth overall by Philadelphia in 2022, traded to Anaheim last season): five goals, 16 points in 35 games.

Leo Carlsson (selected second overall in 2023): seven goals, 12 points in 29 games.

Trevor Zegras (selected ninth overall in 2019): four goals, 10 points in 24 games.

That’s four players selected in the top-10 of their respective drafts in the past five seasons, and none of them are even close to being an impact player. It is of course far, far too early to give up on any of them (though Zegras is getting close). But Anaheim has to be concerned with the development, or lack thereof, of their blue chip prospects.

Keep Your Head On A Swivel

The Ducks already had one of the dirtiest players in the league, Radko Gudas, on their roster. Then a few weeks ago, Anaheim decided to double down on this aspect of their team by trading for former Rangers captain Jacob Trouba. In case you were wondering, in 10 games with the Ducks, Trouba has one point, an assist.

Gudas was bad enough, but now the Devils have to worry about flying elbows from Trouba as well. I am hoping New Jersey finds a way to avoid serious injury tonight, but that’s going to be a tough ask with Gudas AND Trouba hunting for serious injuries to cause this evening.

Projected Lineup

Here’s how Anaheim lined up against Edmonton on Sunday:

Expect something similar, if not identical, tonight.

Your Take

What do you expect out of tonight’s game? What about the road trip as a whole? Who on the Devils do you want to see step up? Which one of the Ducks’ blue chip prospects intrigues you the most? As always, thanks for reading!