New Jersey Devils Still Unable To Figure Out Carolina Hurricanes In 4-1 Loss In Game 1

It was about the worst-case scenario today, with the Devils losing decisively, and some more key injuries suffered

The Carolina Hurricanes have played the exact same way for over half a decade now. Since Rod Brind’Amour took over as head coach, the Canes have adopted a unique style, emphasizing forechecks, puck pressure on defense, and low danger shots. You know this, I know this, everyone knows this. Everyone, it seems, except the New Jersey Devils. In Game 1 of their first round series, the Devils had no answers to the Hurricanes’ style of play in a dismal 4-1 loss in Carolina.

On ESPN’s broadcast (I’ll have more to say about ESPN later on), P.K. Subban went on a mini-rant during the second intermission. He gave a little credit to the Hurricanes, but most of his analysis centered not on Carolina playing well, but New Jersey playing terribly. I will admit to being fairly stubborn sometimes as far as how stingy I am with my praise for opponents. In any sport, whenever a team I root for loses, most of the time I default to “my team played poorly” rather than “the other team played well”. That being said, I could not possibly agree with Subban more.

Not only have the Hurricanes played the exact same way since before any of us had ever heard of COVID-19, but the Devils are a division rival of theirs! This is not an exotic western conference team that New Jersey only has to think about twice a year. This is a squad that New Jersey plays numerous times every regular season, and as we’ve seen since 2023, frequently in the postseason as well. Devils defensemen looked slow and indecisive on breakout attempts. Devils forwards looked lost and confused about their assignments. Most of the time the strategy seemed to be “Flip it into the neutral zone and hope something good happens”. In a post Randy Carlyle world, I never thought I’d see such heavy reliance on that strategy again. Yet that was the only way the Devils could keep their heads above water against the Hurricanes’ forecheck.

Except I’m lying…they DID NOT keep their heads above water. Yes it’s true that, despite the lopsided shot counter, the Hurricanes didn’t generate as much from the high danger areas as you’d think. But of course, that is Carolina’s entire game. They don’t really get to the inside on purpose all that much, their entire offensive strategy is “fling pucks in the general direction of the net and hope something good happens”. And again, I cannot stress this enough, that has been their entire offensive system for years and years at this point. And yet, despite having as much experience with Carolina’s style of play as any team in the league, the Devils wilted. New Jersey was outshot 17-5 in the first period, 21-8 in the second period, and while they outshot Carolina 11-7 in the third period thanks entirely to score effects, they still couldn’t generate that much in the way of high danger looks. For the game, Natural Stat Trick had the Devils pegged at a 5-on-5 Expected Goals For% just a shade over 30%, and again, the final numbers were only better thanks to score effects. Truly awful stuff.

So yes, while I admit to being stubborn sometimes, I wholeheartedly agree with Subban. This game was not won by Carolina, it was lost by the Devils. It was an inexcusable performance out of this team today.

As if the miserable performance wasn’t enough, New Jersey, already limping into this series at nowhere close to full strength, suffered a few more key injuries during this game. In the second period, Brenden Dillon got tangled up with William Carrier in front of the Devils net, with Dillon getting slammed down to the ice. I did not think it was particularly dirty, but I did think it could have been called a penalty. Either way, Dillon tried to get back up a few times but tumbled to the ice each time until play was stopped and he was helped down the tunnel by a trainer.

This is where I want someone to please help me out in the comments section. The ESPN broadcast only gave us a single replay of the Dillon incident, I had to go digging online to get a clearer picture of what happened. Ray Ferraro said right after it happened that it looked like a lower body injury. I saw another NHL reporter on Twitter say it looked like a lower body injury…but this looks like a potential concussion, does it not? Yes I understand Dillon couldn’t stand up and that’s going to make people think it was a leg injury, but to me it looked like he couldn’t stand because he was knocked dizzy. Here’s the play again, though we have to sit through Carolina’s broadcast to view it:

To me this looks like an elbow to the head that knocked Dillon loopy. Again, maybe not malicious, but certainly enough to call a penalty. If Martin Necas can bait the referees into calling a five-minute major and a game misconduct on Timo Meier for “kneeing” by acting like he got shot, only to miraculously rise from the dead the INSTANT Carolina hit the ice for the ensuing power play, then I really, really think the referees can call an elbow to the head. But that’s just me.

Anyway, when Dillon was being helped off, I didn’t see any noticeable limp. At the time of this writing, word has not reached us about the exact nature of Dillon’s injury, though we did get this vague update:

Did anyone else see a potential concussion as well? Or am I crazy and you did, in fact, see it as a lower body injury? Please help me out in the comments.

Meanwhile, you may have noticed Cody Glass in that tweet above. That’s thanks to one catastrophic shift in the third period that turned out to be a lot better than it initially looked. In the Devils’ defensive zone, Luke Hughes was taken down and went hard into his own net, clutching what appeared to be his shoulder. He stayed down and at the next whistle left to the locker room. Following right behind him was Cody Glass, who took some friendly fire when Jacob Markstrom whacked him with his stick inadvertently as Glass was cutting in front of the crease. This time I feel confident that what I saw was a lower body injury, and Glass had to be helped to the locker room right behind Hughes. It was at this point that things couldn’t be much bleaker for the Devils.

Thankfully, though, Hughes returned to this game and didn’t look particularly compromised to me. We often see this in sports though, where a player will be able to tough out an injury for the rest of the game thanks to the adrenaline, but afterwards needs to miss some time. It doesn’t appear that Hughes is in danger of missing Game 2, and it goes without saying that a Hughes injury would be crushing. But it’s worth keeping an eye on. Dillon and Glass, however, might very well have to miss some time, stretching an already thin Devils team even thinner.

What else is there to say? Nico Hischier scored a nice 4-on-4 goal late in the second period to pull his team to within 3-1, but that was the high point of the day. I thought Jacob Markstrom played a decent game. He stopped 41 of 44 shots for a dazzling .932 Save%, but as discussed, plenty of those shots were of the low danger variety. Still, Markstrom had to make some tough saves, and he performed admirably in the face of relentless pressure today. The power play was a disaster, and I would really like to see Dougie Hamilton and Stefan Noesen returned to PP1. And I touched on it briefly when talking about Dillon, but I also didn’t like how much the Canes were able to get away with, namely a clear as day elbow to the face of Timo Meier by Dimitri Orlov (especially considering Meier got called for a pretty soft tripping call himself). But the officiating was the least of New Jersey’s worries today.

And speaking of Meier, I really feel for him. In the first round against the Rangers two years ago, he played an exceptional series, but had absurdly bad puck luck getting turned aside time and again by a red hot Igor Shesterkin. Then at the very end of the series, he was on the receiving end of a classic Jacob Trouba headshot that New York’s former captain delivered because him and his team were getting embarrassed by a bitter rival and Trouba just wanted to hurt someone so he could feel better about himself. Meier had to miss Game 1 of the second round against, you guessed it, Carolina, and he wasn’t the same player when he returned. And then today, with the Devils actually fighting back in the third period down 3-1, Meier had a golden opportunity on a loose puck in front, but Frederick Andersen made a really good stick save on Meier as he tried to sweep home the loose puck. As much as Meier’s production has not been what any of us have wanted since he came to New Jersey and signed his huge contract, I firmly believe that Meier has been the unluckiest Devil since the 2023 trade deadline. His puck luck is shockingly bad.

In any case, the Devils lost convincingly today, and now they have another wave of injuries to deal with. Maybe in the time between games 1 and 2, Sheldon Keefe and his squad will actually figure out how to play against the Hurricanes. But considering they’ve had over half a decade to figure it out and they still haven’t been able to, I wouldn’t count on it.

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 the NHL’s website

Next Man Up

Let’s assume that Brenden Dillon and Cody Glass can’t go in game 2. Who takes their places?

For Dillon, it seems the options are Simon Nemec, Seamus Casey, and Dennis Cholowski. If I had to guess what Sheldon Keefe will do, I assume he will go with Cholowski. It just feels like the conventional (note: not necessarily correct, but conventional) wisdom that Keefe will fall back on is to go with the player who is a veteran that brings a reputation for defensive responsibility to the table. Whether you actually believe Cholowski provides that defensive responsibility is another matter, but the point is he has that reputation, so that’s where I think Keefe will go. Plus Cholowski is a lefty and Nemec and Casey are both righties, so I think getting that balance in the lineup will be important to Keefe.

What would I do if I was coaching the Devils? I’ll be honest, I don’t think any option is great. I don’t have much confidence in Cholowski, but I really do fear that Nemec and Casey would get eaten alive by the Hurricanes’ forecheck. That being said, Nemec and Casey do have a lot of puck moving ability, so it’s possible they provide exactly the skillset the Devils need to combat the forecheck. But that might just be wishful thinking on my part. Gun to my head, I’d say go with Nemec. It’s far from ideal, but it’s worth a shot. At least for one game.

As for Glass, I assume Curtis Lazar would draw back into the lineup. The other options would be Tomas Tatar, Nolan Foote, and Kurtis MacDermid, none of whom are centers. It’s possible you could shift Erik Haula back to center and plug one of the wings in, but to me this one is pretty cut and dry. If Glass can’t go, expect Lazar in game 2.

Spreading the Wealth

Keefe started this game by stacking his two best available players, Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt, on a line. Through two periods, it wasn’t going well at all, so Keefe broke them up for the final frame. For reference, here’s how the lines started:

And here’s how they ended up in the third:

This of course was before Glass had to leave the game.

The Hurricanes were an elite home team this season, with 31 wins at the Lenovo Center. When they get the matchups they want, they’re tough to beat, which probably does make it a good idea to spread the offensive talent out among the lines. It’s not ideal, but it at least makes New Jersey less susceptible to Death By Matchup.

I suppose in an ideal world the Devils would be able to roll Hischier, Bratt, and Timo Meier on three separate lines to truly spread the wealth. But that might be cutting off your nose to spite your face, as you might just be creating three dysfunctional lines instead. We’ll see what Keefe decides to do next time out, but I would have to think there’s a strong possibility that Hischier and Bratt are not on the same line to start game 2.

The Worldwide Leader In Nonsense

Ok, so about that ESPN broadcast.

I already mentioned how they only showed a single replay of the incident with Brenden Dillon, which is unacceptable. Then they only showed one clear replay of what happened when Luke Hughes had to leave the game, instead deciding to show a million replays of Glass’ injury. Again, completely unacceptable producing. I had to once again scour the internet to get a better view of what happened to Hughes on that play.

Then during the intermission reports, ESPN continued to show us that Mark Messier is not worth taking seriously. I understand why they have him as an analyst, he’s a big name who also happens to be a prominent former Ranger, so I get it from a ratings perspective. But the man offers absolutely nothing of substance to the broadcast, and in the worst-case scenario, offers outright incorrect analysis.

Shortly after ESPN’s beloved New York Rangers got eliminated from postseason contention, Messier was tasked with coming up with a checklist of ways to help the Rangers turn things around. Here’s what he came up with:

Aside from “Push youth into more important roles”, Messier very impressively managed to say the same vapid platitude four different ways. This, frankly, is an embarrassing list.

And then today, Messier brought up that team size and strength were a big problem for the Devils. Except…

Truly insulting to my intelligence to provide this level of “analysis”.

Finally, did you know the Devils losing Jack Hughes is a big deal? Did you know that since Hughes was injured, the Devils’ offense has struggled? It was very subtle so you may have missed it, but ESPN did find a sliver of time to dedicate to Jack Hughes today.

In all seriousness, the focus on Hughes tapered off as the game went on, but my word they could not shut up about Hughes’ absence through the first half of this game. I don’t normally like doing this, but today it needs to be said. Between the unacceptable lack of replays on key injuries, Messier’s brainless propaganda, and the incessant hammering home of preplanned talking points, the ESPN broadcast was bad today. Don’t expect it to get better anytime soon.

Just Tell Us The Truth, Please

Speaking of broadcasts, we all know that scheduled start times aren’t actual start times in the NHL. 7pm puck drop means 7:08pm in reality, for example. But today was especially egregious, with a 3pm scheduled puck drop and a 3:15pm actual puck drop. You could not have listened to all of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida between the scheduled start time and true start time, but it was shockingly close.

Perhaps this will just be the norm moving forward since the playoffs are a different animal. Or perhaps this is just the case for the first home game for each team, since there’s a little more pomp and circumstance attached to everything. I’m not entirely sure, but either way, I would work under the assumption that the puck will not actually drop until much later than scheduled. Get ready for Game 3, with it’s slated 8pm start time this coming Friday, to end at approximately 2:45am.

Next Time Out

Game 2 of this series is scheduled for Tuesday, with puck drop from Carolina scheduled for 6pm. No that’s not a typo, it’s a 6pm start time. Plan accordingly.

Your Take

What did you make of today’s game? How concerned are you with Dillon, Glass, Hughes? Do you expect different line combinations to start next game? What do you expect next time out? As always, thanks for reading.