A little bit of this would have gone a long way a couple of weeks ago.
Seriously, where was this kind of effort against Calgary and Detroit? Or, for that matter, Washington last Friday?
Not that it was perfect by any means, but the Devils team that turned what looked like a surefire, “get-right” game for the recently struggling Stars into a disappointing 6-4 loss Tuesday night in Dallas, looked way more like the eight-game win streak Devils of October, than the sad-sack group that’s stumbled to 13th in the Eastern Conference since Jack Hughes got hurt eating dinner in November.
Actually, they kind of looked like the less-good version of the Lindy Ruff Devils of 2023-24 on the rare occasions Jack Hughes was in the lineup and they got good goaltending.
And the Devils got good goaltending, or at least good enough goaltending, Tuesday night from Jake Allen.
Making his second consecutive start after sitting for 18 days, Allen stopped 23 of 27 shots. The .852 save percentage is nothing to write home about, but, you know what he didn’t do? He didn’t flinch in the game’s opening minutes and give up a goal on the first or second shot and throw his team back on its heels the way Jacob Markstrom has done so often this season.
Allen helped withstand an early push from the Stars — 1-3-1 in their last five and staring down a four-game road trip. With just a slim chance of catching the first-place Avs and avoiding an opening-round meeting with the Wild, Dallas was all over the Devils in the first four minutes.
And yet it was the Devils who struck first. Simon Nemec picked off an errant clear at the blue line and found Hughes in the circle. Hughes cut to the net, outwaited Jake Oettinger, and roofed his 19th goal of the season.
The Stars tied it 1-1 on Wyatt Johnston’s 39th of the year — the first of two he’d score Tuesday — but the game didn’t stay even long.
Just 55 seconds after the Johnston goal Jesper Bratt did what Jesper Bratt has mostly failed to all season and drove the net hard and pick the top corner to give the Devils a 2-1 lead.
And they didn’t let up.
Two minutes, 41 seconds later it was Connor Brown turning a two-on-one with Bratt into his 14th goal of the season.
Eight minutes, eight seconds after his 19th goal had started the rally, Hughes scored his 20th to dump the Stars in a 4-1 hole.
It was one of the more remarkable sequences of the season — a return to the type of free-wheeling rush game with quick counter attacks Lindy Ruff loved, as opposed to the dump-and-chase, low event hockey Sheldon Keefe pushed hard with Hughes and Brett Pesce out of the lineup in November and December.
The Stars pushed back in the second. Johnston’s 40th of the year 1:11 into the period on the power play made it 4-2, and Jason Robertson got Dallas within one midway through the period.
New Jersey regrouped to start the third and a Timo Meier goal 6:14 in looked to finish off the Stars, before Mavrik Bourque made up for getting undressed by Bratt in the first, tipping a shot past Markstrom at 13:08 to make it 5-4.
That set-up a tense finish with the Stars goalie on the bench for an extra attacker and the Devils turning pucks over like crazy. But right after a particularly egregious Nico Hischier turnover nearly wound up behind Allen, Dougie Hamilton’s empty netter sealed the win.
The penultimate game of the last long road trip of the year is at 8pm, Thursday in Nashville, where the Predators are clinging to the final Wild Card spot in the West. Nashville beat San Jose 6-3 on Tuesday to stay three points up on the Kings. The Predators have been red-hot. They’re 7-2-1 in their last 10 and have won five straight.
Am I the only one that finds them incredibly frustrating even when they win? You can see what could have/should have been. Dallas is elite and played a really good game and without their best defender the Devils were more than they could handle. At least it was entertaining. You could almost believe our Top 6 isn’t a mess and the whole thing doesn’t need to be blown up.