The New Jersey Devils took on the Calgary Flames and just struggled to maintain the puck, pass it effectively, and attack. Jacob Markstrom did the best he could, but the Devils were shut out in a sloppy and ugly game to the Flames. Read on to learn more about what happened.
The New Jersey Devils and the Calgary Flames were tied for 54 minutes of tonight’s game in Calgary. It was a 0-0 affair. Jacob Markstrom was locked in for the Devils. Calgary’s offense came in stretches but was often away from the really dangerous parts of the ice, as evident by their five high-danger chances. Dan Vladar kept the spurts of offense from the Devils out of his net. As time went on in the third, it seemed that no one was going to breakthough without some luck involved.
The final score was 0-3 so you know who got the luck. Calgary. And they got it from Blake Coleman and Kevin Bahl of all people. Bahl fired a shot from the right point as Coleman flashed to the front of the net. Coleman tipped the puck with his stick blade and then that puck hit off his skate blade to beat Markstrom. It was a rare double deflection by one player. At 14:26 of the third period, it was 0-1. It would end up being enough for the Devils to lose the game.
Not content with that, the Devils fell apart on the next shift. Johnathan Kovacevic, who got to play a lot of defense tonight, was caught flat footed at the left point on offense. Calgary broke out in a two-on-one with Jonathan Huberdeau and Anthony Mantha against Jonas Siegenthaler. The two did a give-and-go to beat both the one and Markstrom. Huberdeau made it 0-2 at 14:54 into the third. Or 28 seconds after Coleman’s double-deflection. Making it worse was that it was one of the few truly clean plays of the whole entire game from both sides. Do not be fooled by the shot count or the score. This game was an ugly affair.
The game was sloppy for the first third. Not a slow start as you would expect from a 5-12 shot differential. The Devils put in the effort. The execution was lacking. The ice in Calgary led to a lot of bouncing pucks. Passes went into skates or legs or off the other team. The Devils worked to win pucks and tried to make turnovers but they could not get that extra touch or settled puck to make something with it. Calgary was better, yes, but not by a ton from what I saw. Stats at Natural Stat Trick showed a heavy shot and chance differential but just 1-1 in high-danger shots in 5-on-5 play. They went offsides a bunch of times unnecessarily. They were more or less bailed out by the sloppiness as opposed to locking the Devils down. They had more shots, yes, but they came in bits and only one – a deflection -really challenged Jacob Markstrom. The Devils were sloppy, the game itself was sloppy for both sides to start, and so 0-0 was fine at that moment.
The sloppiness continued for another third of the game: the second period. There were some differences. The Big Deal got sprung for two breakaways. One that came right after Yegor Sharangovich hammered the post, one that Kevin Bahl caught up to, and both denied by Dan Vladar. I wish one of them went in if only because it was some of the real bits of offense the Devils had for the first 10 minutes of the second period. They would get some spurts of zone time and forcing Vladar to do something. This was undercut by the ice, the puck movement, Calgary’s defending, and in Tomas Tatar’s case, a high-sticking penalty. The Flames did get five shots on that power play. A far cry better than an earlier second period PP that yielded more shorthanded 2-on-1s for the Devils than anything Calgary did. The shot count was not outrageous at 9-11. Jacob Markstrom was sharp as sharp can be. But the Devils looked like a team trying to fight the game instead of playing it and Calgary was not so much better than that. 0-0 was understandable but one worried whether the breakthrough would come from the right side. As we know now, it did not.
The Devils would try to mount some kind of comeback. Markstrom was pulled rather early for an extra skater with nearly 4:30 to go. The Devils had, again, spurts of offensive zone time and offense. And, again, it not did not come to fruition. It died with 3:15 left on the clock. Blake Coleman took a loose puck from below the left circle and heaved it out of the zone. The puck rolled off the post and in for the 0-3 final. Paul Cotter’s stick was chopped into pieces a bit later, but the resulting power play yielded – again – nothing past Vladar. The Devils were shutout.
I understand the frustration given the context. The Devils walloped two teams in a row with six-goal games and arguably had their best team effort in Vancouver two nights ago. Calgary came into this one ice cold after a hot start. Tonight, it seemed like they played in slush and could not break down Calgary’s pressure as they got shut out with just 22 shots on net. The hot power play was rendered ordinary in going 0-for-3. Some of the People Who Matter will wish The Big Deal finished one of those breakaways. Others will wonder where the hot Nico Hischier line went. I will be the one to point out how little the Haula line did beyond drawing some calls. There may be some who will complain that Markstrom did not make enough saves. Which I do not agree with since he was one of two Devils tonight to have played a sharp game from start to finish.
A bigger picture view will show that every team is going to have ugly nights with sloppy results where the energy and effort were present but the execution was not. That just happens in an 82 game season. That is what the Devils had tonight. Hopefully it is just what happened tonight in Calgary and does not become a trend as they close out their trip in Edmonton on Monday.
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: From the NHL’s own Youtube channel, here are 10:13 worth of highlights of this game. Wait, 10 minutes? Of this game? This ugly, hard-to-watch, I-cannot-believe-people-paid-for-this game? Was there a quota to meet on time?
The Main Lesson: If you cannot move the puck effectively, then it is hard to be effective. The Devils’ offense was stunted tonight because they struggled to find zone entries with possession, struggled to keep pucks in the zone, struggled to get clean zone exits, and struggled to keep the puck on their own sticks when moving it. It was not as if the Devils’ defense was horribly gashed tonight. They allowed 45 attempts and 26 shots in 5-on-5, but with an xGA of 1.28, it was not the main issue. The Devils just struggled to get going because of the sloppiness of the game and their performance. They put themselves in a position where they needed Markstrom to keep it a game and hope they get a favorable bounce. They got a good game out of Markstrom. They did not get the bounce. As a team, that is what has to be better in the next game and beyond.
The Only Other Devil to Have Been On Point All Game: Markstrom was one of two Devils to have been rather good and good in executing tonight. The other was defenseman Brett Pesce. In a game filled with bouncing pucks, broken plays, and passes gone awry, he was a calming element. Fittingly, he arguably had the best numbers in 5-on-5 for the Devils tonight. He had the best xGF% among the defensemen at 54.39%, he had a good CF% at 20-13, and the shots were just 9-11 when he was on the ice. Pesce handled his business very well tonight. He did this while also putting his body in front of pucks as needed as well as just being smart on the puck. He had a good overall game amid a lineup full of guys who just could not figure it out for more than a shift here and there.
Down One: In the first period, Paul Cotter was hit into the boards by a Flame. Ryan Lomberg decided to join and ended up jumping on top of a falling Cotter. Nathan Bastian took exception and began to fight Lomberg as a trainer went off to see Cotter. Bastian got his face punched in a bunch of times. The good news was that Cotter ended up being fine and played the rest of the game. The not-so-good news was that Bastian got two for instigation (fair), five for fighting, and a ten-minute misconduct. The weird news was that Lomberg got nothing for trying to double-up a hit on Cotter. I would have expected at least a roughing call. The real bad news was that Bastian left the game from that point and would not return due to a jaw injury. He played 3:28.
Without further news about how significant the injury is, I would expect a call up from Utica eventually. My guess is that the Devils can just put Kurtis MacDermid in the line up for the Edmonton game and call someone up after once they know better about how long Bastian will be out of the lineup. I would rather see Sheldon Keefe go with seven defenseman instead, which would give Simon Nemec a chance to re-earn some minutes on this roster. As far as who to call up from Utica, your guess is as good as mine. The Comets have been wrecked this season and so no one really stands out.
By the way, there was a bit on the broadcast about how MacDermid being out there would have stopped Lomberg from doing what he did. Dano and Bryce Salvador clearly do not recall the lack of impact that had on Radko Gudas on Sunday. So it goes.
The Struggles: While the expectation is correctly on the Devils’ top names to produce, it must be said that the Haula line was awful tonight. They had one shot combined in 5-on-5. One. Thanks to Ty Barrie not being smart, their dump-and-chase did yield a drawn penalty in the first period. That was all their dump-and-chase ultimately did this evening. While Stefan Noesen, Erik Haula, and Cotter may not be top tier offensive talents, their ineffectiveness helped make it easier for Calgary to focus on the Hughes and Hischier lines. It also meant that any shifts the Haula line took would often be in New Jersey’s own end. If you are looking for a unit to be better for Edmonton, then I would start there. The talent of most of that top six will sort itself out. What will make a difference in a road game is a competent depth line that forces the opposition to respect it – thereby opening up matchups as the game goes on.
The Honors: Tonight’s game started later than the 9:08 PM start time that would normally come from a 9:00 listed start time. This was because tonight was the first home game for Mikael Backlund since reaching the 1,000 games played mark. Backlund joins a select club for reaching that number of games just with one franchise. Backlund has been a Flame since 2008-09 (1 game) and has been a mainstay since 2010. As such, he was honored by the team. That was the cause for the delay. Congratulations to Backlund all the same.
One Last Thought: Once again, this was ugly and sloppy. If it does not become a trend, then it is not going to matter a ton.
Your Take: Now that you know what I think about the game, I want to know what your take is. What is your reaction to the loss? How well do you think Markstrom played? What needs to be better for Monday night’s game in Edmonton? Please leave your answers and other thoughts about tonight’s loss in the comments. Thanks to Jackson for the game preview. Thanks to everyone who commented in the Gamethread and/or followed along on X with @AAtJerseyBlog. Thank you for reading.