Jake Allen Steals The Show In New Jersey Devils’ 3-0 Win Over Edmonton Oilers

The Devils’ netminder was fantastic, and he had to be in a game largely controlled by the Oilers

The annual Western Canada road trip is over, and the Devils ended it on a high note tonight with a 3-0 victory in Edmonton over the defending Western Conference champion Oilers. It was the second shutout victory on this three-game road trip, and while it was far from the prettiest game for New Jersey, the win ensured a successful trip, with four out of a possible six points secured. Stefan Noesen, Jesper Bratt (on the power play), and Timo Meier were the goal scorers tonight, with Meier’s tally being a particularly pretty one:

Despite the final score, this was a game largely controlled by the Oilers. Edmonton outshot the Devils 31-16. According to Natural Stat Trick, New Jersey got pulverized in the run of play, registering a 5-on-5 Expected Goals For% of just 31.10%, including a shocking 5.49% in the second period (yes, the decimal is in the correct place). New Jersey actually put up a decent showing in the third period, recording four High Danger Corsi For chances to Edmonton’s zero…but still lost the xGF% battle in the final frame with just a shade under 49% at 5-on-5. That’s how much the Oilers possessed the puck and flung shots at the net. What makes this even more disappointing is that Edmonton was without the greatest player in the world, Connor McDavid, as he recovers from an ankle injury, AND tonight was the second half of a back-to-back for Edmonton while New Jersey had two days of rest. Despite all that, the Oilers were by far the more threatening team tonight. So why wasn’t that territorial dominance reflected on the scoreboard?

The answer is obvious: Jake Allen.

Simply put, Allen stole this game from the Oilers. He “Goalie’d” them. He stood on his head. He committed highway robbery. However you want to put it, this was a Jake Allen win this evening. He saved 3.45 Goals Above Expected per NST, which sounds about right to me. In the first period alone, Edmonton fired eight HDCF his way, which is an insane number. It didn’t matter, Allen stopped them all. He denied Zach Hyman on a partial breakaway. He stopped Adam Henrique on a point blank chance after Jonas Siegenthaler lost an edge and committed a turnover behind his own net. He robbed Derek Ryan on a two-on-one, though Ryan didn’t quite get all of it on the shot. Allen stopped this, that, and the other, and Edmonton could do nothing but tip their cap.

Since roughly the end of Cory Schneider’s prime, how often have we bemoaned a loss in which the skaters thrived but the goaltending utterly collapsed? It feels like it’s been every other game for some time now. Well tonight was the opposite. The skaters were hilariously outclassed this evening, but their netminder was there to bail them out and steal two points for them. Maybe your own eye test told you different, and if it did please let me know in the comments, but from what I could tell the issue was not with compete level. I thought the skaters gave a strong effort tonight, but the execution was not there and, frankly, credit should be given to a superior Oilers team. Even without the best player in the world, that’s still an outstanding squad.

But in the end, Allen saved the day. It was his second shutout in five starts this season, which is an obviously unsustainable rate but nice to see nonetheless. The process was less than ideal, but the end result was positive. And now New Jersey gets to actually return to New Jersey after a long swing out west.

Credit to Jake Allen. He stole the show tonight.

The Game Stats: The NHL.com Game Summary | The NHL.com Event Summary | The NHL.com Play by Play Log | The NHL.com Shot Summary | The Natural Stat Trick Game Stats

The Game Highlights: Courtesy of NHL.com

So Did Anyone Not Named Allen Look Good Tonight?

Honestly, I didn’t think so. But according to the fancy stats at Natural Stat Trick, there were five Devils who finished above 50% in 5-on-5 xGF%: The pairing of Brett Pesce and Luke Hughes, and the line of Jesper Bratt-Jack Hughes-Ondrej Palat. Luke Hughes in particular looked excellent, sporting a 69.36 xGF% while the other four were in the mid to low-50% range.

What might’ve helped was the fact that none of those players drew the Leon Draisaitl matchup (that thankless task belonged to the Jonas Siegenthaler-Johnathan Kovacevic pairing and Nico Hischier line), but regardless of matchup, it was nice to see at least some Devils skaters come out ok according to the advanced numbers.

When It Rains, It Pours

On the first game of this trip in Vancouver, Jacob Markstrom shut out his former team. Through roughly 55 minutes of the game in Calgary, Markstrom was blanking the Flames until it fell apart in the last five minutes. And now another shutout this evening for Jake Allen. Between the defense and the goaltending, the Devils got incredibly strong results in the Goals Allowed column in Western Canada.

Three goals yielded in three games, two of those games being shutouts. New Jersey recorded a single shutout win all of last season, or put another way, the Devils produced twice as many clean sheets on this single road trip than they did all of last season. Tonight was almost entirely on Allen, but the Vancouver game was the platonic ideal of strong defense meeting equally strong goaltending. We obviously can’t expect these types of numbers the rest of the way, but at the very least, the defense and goaltending seem to have stabilized after a rough stretch in the middle of October.

1-0, Them

The Devils scored first tonight (which, you know, checks out considering they blanked the Oilers). We all know how much of a struggle it was for New Jersey with allowing the first goal last season. It was such an issue that they actually came dangerously close to tying the all-time mark for highest percentage of games in which a team yielded the first goal in a season. Looking at 2023-24 through that lens, it’s a minor miracle the Devils were as close to .500 as they were.

But New Jersey appears to have kicked that nasty habit this year. Tonight marked the ninth time in 15 games thus far that the Devils have found the back of the net first. That’s a 60% clip. Prorated over an 82 game season, that comes out to approximately 49 games, which will absolutely get the job done.

One quibble though: According to the MSG broadcast tonight, the Devils were only 4-3-1 when scoring first this season entering tonight’s contest. Four wins and four losses is not what you want to see when you draw first blood. Tonight’s victory helps make those numbers look better, and to be fair it is still quite early in the season so that trend can easily go the other way in a hurry. But for now, while the results aren’t fully satisfying, it is so nice to see New Jersey finally learning how to avoid the dreaded “1-0, them” tweets.

A Word On The Fourth Line

Curtis Lazar suffered a knee lower body injury against the Anaheim Ducks right before this road trip, and is now out for weeks. Nate Bastian injured his jaw in the Calgary game and is now out for a while. That’s 2/3’s of the fourth line, and while the fourth line by it’s nature is less important than the other three lines, any chipping away at the depth of the team hurts.

Chris wrote about potential solutions until Lazar and Bastian are back, but for now Sheldon Keefe has gone with the simple answer: Call up Justin Dowling, and insert Kurtis MacDermid into the lineup. Those two, along with Tomas Tatar, did not fare particularly well in the run of play tonight, though to be fair not many Devils did. MacDermid played 8:16 this evening, which is about 8:15 more than he usually gets. I think I’m higher on Tatar than a lot of Devils fans, as I do think he’s a luxury on the fourth line. I think him and Dowling can hold down the fort for a bit, though having to carry MacDermid with them might be too much to handle.

After a raft of injuries to key players sunk New Jersey last year, the Devils have largely remained healthy so far. Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce were injured to start the campaign, but they have both since returned and are starting to play quite well. The hope is that the fourth line can just not drown too hard until Lazar and Bastian (or perhaps outside help) returns.

One Last Gripe

Tonight’s game was listed as an 8:30pm start. The game actually started at 8:47pm (I made sure to track it). This after a game in Calgary that started roughly 4 days behind schedule due to the 1,000th game ceremony for Mikael Backlund. I understand delaying the start time a bit due to a ceremony like that, but not to the extent we saw. And I have no idea why tonight’s contest was so delayed, there was no ceremony that I noticed.

The standard appears to be that a game will start eight minutes after the advertised start time. 7:00pm listed time? 7:08 puck drop. 7:30pm start? Actually we’ll play at 7:38pm. I’ve long since accepted that, but for the love of god no more lengthy delays. Especially for Pacific/Mountain time zone games. I want my hockey to arrive on time, please.

Next Time Out

The Devils return home from their Western Canada trip to battle the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday at The Rock. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:00pm.

Your Take

What did you make of tonight’s game? How impressed were you with Jake Allen? What did you make of the Western Canada road trip as a whole? What are you expecting when the Devils return to New Jersey? As always, thanks for reading!