What’s there to say? The Devils brought nothing to the table tonight and received a beatdown.
First Period
Adding to the New Jersey Devils’ recent injury woes, the team announced just before opening puck drop that Luke Hughes would not be in for a lower-body injury. Just 58 seconds into the game, Jake Allen bit too hard on a passing play against the rush, giving Alex Iafallo time to spin a backhand into the net. The Winnipeg Jets took a 1-0 lead as the Devils immediately saw a defensive breakdown without their remaining number one defenseman.
Less than a minute later, Simon Nemec turned the puck over on the breakout off a hard pass from Brett Pesce, and Curtis Lazar could not clear a rebound from the crease as Winnipeg took the puck right back in on Allen. David Gustafsson crashed the net to bury the puck as Allen laid on the ice, giving Winnipeg a 2-0 lead.
Several minutes into the period, Nino Niederreiter sprung Vladislav Namestnikov ahead, and Namestnikov drove the net around Brenden Dillon right into Jake Allen, sending the Devils to the power play. The Devils used five forwards on the top power play, and the first sequence ended with a one-timer that went wide from Timo Meier. The Devils had trouble regaining the offensive zone, and Ondrej Palat turned the puck right over when he came onto the ice to take the rest of the first unit off the ice. One shot from Nemec late in the power play deflected wide of goal, as the Devils put up zero shots on goal on their power play.
The Devils almost had a goal for Erik Haula when Josh Morrissey pushed him into the crease, but the play was immediately waved off for goaltender interference. While the Devils tried to get their legs moving, they failed to create a similarly dangerous chance for the rest of the period. Going into the first intermission down 2-0 with Allen looking completely off his game in net, the Devils did not appear to be in a great position to pull off a comeback.
Second Period
Up two goals, the Winnipeg Jets completely shut down the New Jersey Devils for the first several minutes of the middle frame. Winnipeg sat their defensemen back, and their forwards prevented the Devils from having enough time to do anything with the puck. Given the extremely defensive lineup Sheldon Keefe decided to go with tonight, this made a comeback seem all the more impossible.
Nearly 13 minutes into the period, with only a combined three shots on goal to that point, Nico Hischier was tripped on a rush by Colin Miller as he moved the puck to Timo Meier. Dennis Cholowski kept the puck moving around the wall to Ondrej Palat, who worked it back down low, where Hischier chipped it right over the crossbar. The Devils, however, went to the power play, looking to pull within one not long after the game’s halfway point.
The Devils again used five forwards on the power play, and Winnipeg won the initial draw to push them back to their defensive end. Jesper Bratt took the puck up the ice, gaining the zone, and set up in the point position. The Devils moved the puck well, and Timo Meier had a one-timer rebound to the slot. The puck was knocked back to Meier, and he rang the puck off the iron. The Devils kept pushing on the power play, but Hellebuyck made a big save on Dawson Mercer. The Devils then had to go to the penalty kill when Simon Nemec took down Colin Miller.
Johnny Kovacevic muscled his way to the puck to clear it down the ice from the faceoff circle, and the Jets came back down the ice to set up in their offensive zone. Jake Allen, again, put himself in a bad position and let up a big rebound. Alex Iafallo sticked the puck down and scored the rebound to make it 3-0, Jets.
Dylan DeMelo came across and hit Dawson Mercer in the mouth, drawing blood. Mercer fired his glove into the bench in anger, drawing whistles to stop play. After a conversation by the referees, a double-minor penalty was called, but it was waved off on account of it being Mercer’s stick drawing the blood. The late and high hit from DeMelo wasn’t enough to draw a call.
Brian Dumoulin was victimized by Mark Scheifele in the neutral zone, as Scheifele took the puck right away to spring the Jets on the rush. Scheifele split the middle while dropping the puck to Kyle Connor, and he knocked the rebound off of Allen and into the net, making it a 4-0 game. Kovacevic let Scheifele right by him.
Third Period
Jake Allen made a big couple big saves on Nikolaj Ehlers and Adam Lowry three and a half minutes into the period to prevent the game from becoming a true blowout. Nico Hischier was denied by Connor Hellebuyck on the other end a couple shifts later when he had a chance right off a faceoff. Play was less stifled than the second period, but the Devils were still unable to finish a chance.
As the game drew to a close, the Jets got back to their shutdown defensive play. However, the Devils got one last power play with under five minutes to play when Ondrej Palat was hooked and slashed as he tried to cut across the middle for a scoring chance. The Devils sent their five forwards back out for the power play, but Stefan Noesen was unable to settle the puck at the side of the net for an early scoring chance. The Devils kept possession for a little bit before Winnipeg began to waste time in the second minute until the second unit came on for a 30-second shift. Ondrej Palat gloved down the puck for a shot in the slot, but he missed the net with Haula waiting for a rebound in front. The Devils were shutout, 4-0.
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
Unskilled Lineups Play Unskilled Games
Tonight, with Luke Hughes already out of the lineup, Sheldon Keefe did not see it fit to adjust his forward lines to give either Nolan Foote or Daniel Sprong a chance to provide some offense to the team. Instead, the defensive lineup faltered once again, putting up a paltry 0.02 expected goals for in the second period at even strength. The second, third, and fourth lines all saw a goal against, meaning that all of those tough defensive presences in the lineup did…nothing. Again.
Why is Justin Dowling still playing games? With a possible third-line center in Erik Haula, there is no reason to play a career-AHLer with five points on the season in the middle six. It’s bad enough that Curtis Lazar, the team’s fourth-line center, also only has five points on the season. But having, essentially, two fourth lines on top of a defense now missing Luke Hughes was a death knell before the puck even dropped to start the first period. Dowling is fine as a fourth-line fill-in, but you cannot be surprised at a shutout when these are your centers. Playing with Dowling and Lazar centering lines means Nico’s line basically has to score three goals.
I was also very unimpressed with Ondrej Palat tonight. The veteran had a game-leading four giveaways (next worst number was two) and just one shot on goal despite having two high-danger chances and four total scoring opportunities, per Natural Stat Trick. Having him on the first line as long as the aforementioned problem goes unaddressed is going to be incredibly difficult to overcome. Palat also got rocked in the third period in just another example of the team’s over-30 forwards (Noesen excluded) being hard to rely on in the physical game.
What Was Jake Doing?
I will criticize the Devils for their defensive zone play (something Ryan McGill probably could have worked out with these guys by now), but Jake Allen was not helping the cause tonight. He overplayed the puck, he had a lot of trouble controlling rebounds, and he really only started making huge saves when the game was already pretty out of reach. Of all four goals Allen gave up tonight, there was not a single one that Allen could not have stopped. He was out of position on the first Iafallo goal. He gave up a big rebound on the Gustafsson goal and missed the puck on his dive. He gave up an even bigger rebound on an untipped long-range shot in the lead-up to the second Iafallo goal. And he did not close down the side of the net on the Scheifele goal, even as the puck was going past him, at first, to the end boards.
To me, this feels like it should be Allen’s worst performance of the season. Given the situation at hand, the need for points in the standings, this was an unacceptable night for both the team and the goalie. However, Allen has been rock-solid for the Devils — one of the best backups in the league this season. I would hope this game does not dissuade Keefe from splitting Markstrom and Allen’s playing time close to evenly the rest of the way, but this was not a fantastic showing.
The Defense and Breakout Passes
Tonight was another adventure in breakout land, with Nemec committing the major offense of the night on the Gustafsson goal. But even though none of their plays after that led to goals against, I still felt like the team really struggled against the forecheck yet again. Johnny Kovacevic, at one point, received the puck from Dumoulin, who made a nice move to give himself and Kovacevic space. But Kovacevic looked like he panicked, delaying the breakout and preventing a counterattack from developing. This is the kind of sight you can see a few times a period Perhaps it’s the lack of support that many of the Devils’ veteran forwards have been giving to break opponent forechecks, but the Devils need to be different tomorrow night. Nemec, Cholowski, and Kovacevic all need to be better with the puck.
There is least of an excuse for Nemec, whose bread and butter as a player ought to be his puckhandling.
Running Out of Room
The Devils are just eight points above the Columbus Blue Jackets after their shootout win, and they will be just seven points above the Rangers if they hold on to their lead over the Ducks. With the Jackets having three games in hand over the Devils, and the Rangers having one game in hand, these are not margins I want to be seeing. I understand that these teams have not been having the best times lately, even with Columbus’s win tonight and New York’s likely one. But this was a truly brutal time to hear just before puck drop that the team’s best remaining defenseman was sitting out for a precautionary issue.
If Luke is not back tomorrow night against Minnesota, the team will be in increasing danger of losing their divisional playoff spot. They cannot afford a losing streak at this point — they need to finish the season strong. If Luke is truly unable to play, I would really like to see Tom Fitzgerald pull the plug on Cholowski and Nemec for the time being and give Santeri Hatakka a shot with Seamus Casey. Hatakka played 12 solid games for the Devils last season, while Casey could provide goalscoring on the power play. But still, I just hope that Luke Hughes and Cody Glass are in the lineup tomorrow night. Getting any points would do a lot to ease the anxiety in this fanbase.
Your Thoughts
What did you think of tonight’s game? What did you think of the start? What did you think of the second period push? How should they respond? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.