After a terrible loss to the Carolina Hurricanes yesterday evening, which really decimated the New Jersey Devils’ longshot playoff hopes, I was looking for one thing above all in the team tonight: whether or not the Devils would play the game for a full 60 minutes and give their best effort. And to be honest, it only felt lucky that they were only down one going into the first intermission. The advanced numbers still favored them for the most part, then, but they simply seemed sleepy compared to the way they were playing in the second and third periods.
In that first period, Simon Nemec will be marked for being lost deep in the defensive zone for two goals against. But really, the first had more to do with Jake Allen, who went behind the net to play the puck and lost it in his skates on a dump-in. Ilya Mikheyev took advantage while Nemec was caught off guard, waiting in the corner for Allen to pass the puck. I have far more issue with Allen’s playing of the puck here, as it continually seems like the current goalie tandem has accounted for more errors playing the puck, often leading to goals against, than I can remember watching the Devils.
The Devils first tied the game with under nine minutes to play in the first period when Connor Brown deflected a shot from Luke Hughes at the point past Spencer Knight. It was Brown’s 15th goal of the season and Luke Hughes’s 10th power play assist of the season, looking pretty good with the first power play unit for a change. It was a great shot selection by Hughes, who had two forwards in Brown and Hischier who were arriving in position to deflect the shot.
The goal against Nemec will get more flak for is the one by Frank Nazar to retake the lead just a couple minutes later. Nemec was caught puck watching a bit, reaching for it around Andre Burakovsky as Ryan Donato slipped it between Burakovsky and Allen. The pass easily beat Nemec’s stick, and Frank Nazar was cutting to the net without any Devil covering. But I really don’t think he is the only one who could have made a play here and did not: Paul Cotter had a good view of Nazar going past him to the net and had a delayed reaction to the play. I take more issue with how slowly Nemec was going for his play. If he’s going to make a read like that, he needs to commit earlier and more aggressively or hold back and pay more attention to the passing lane. But Brenden Dillon, too, needs to pick which side of the net he wants to play on. He’s also caught reaching at Donato on the goal.
This was where I thought the Devils might start to unravel again, but they responded well instead. The second period featured an incredible number of scoring chances for the Devils as they outshot the Blackhawks 16-5 in the second, putting 2.02 expected goals on Spencer Knight. But Knight did fail to stop one shot, and it was a good bit of redemption as Simon Nemec ripped a shot past Chicago’s young goaltender when Dawson Mercer threw a puck from the goal line to the middle of the ice as both teams were fighting for it. Nemec snuck down and found his spot perfectly. Nemec’s 11th of the year stood as another great game-tying goal on his record for the season.
The Blackhawks fought a little better in the third period, but this is when the real controversy came. Nick Bjugstad took an unfortunate high-sticking penalty when he seemed to forget that he is 6’7” and that means holding his stick up a bit might mean him nearly crosschecking Sacha Boisvert in the neck without quite realizing it. That penalty call was fine, and the Devils just had to go out and kill a penalty. About halfway through the kill, Connor Bedard started falling when making a play on the puck in the neutral zone while Cody Glass was swiping for the puck, and Glass was called for a trip. Sheldon Keefe and Sergei Brylin were incensed, but the Blackhawks got the five-on-three. And, in true hockey fashion, the Devils were just seconds from surviving the five-on-three portion of the penalty kill before the Blackhawks froze Jake Allen with good puck movement, with Frank Nazar retaking the lead for Chicago.
Again, I loved the Devils’ pushback after this goal. With over five minutes to play, Dougie Hamilton went down to the dots and fired a far-side shot, beating Spencer Knight to tie the game again, making it twice that a Devils right-handed defenseman tied the game with a nice shot during the game.
And not to be outdone, Jack Hughes continued a stellar game when he blew past his man in the neutral zone just seconds after play resumed, shooting the puck off of Knight’s side and into the net before Chicago’s goaltender could react. This was Jack all night: moving faster than everyone else on the ice and hunting for goals, and he was rewarded at the best possible moment.
Late in the game, during a hectic six-on-five sequence, Nico Hischier, in his 600th game, helped seal the victory when he swiped the puck out of the defensive zone on his backhand, working around Jake Allen’s net. His pass found Jack Hughes perfectly, with Jack crushing Chicago’s comeback effort with an empty netter.
In all, I was pretty pleased with what I saw from the Devils. They had some opportunities to roll over and feel sorry for themselves, and they did not. That’s all you can really ask for from a team in this position, and they won the game on top of it.
What did you think of the win over Chicago? Did you think Knight was going to stonewall them? What did you think about Nemec and Hamilton both scoring goals? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.