{"id":691463,"date":"2026-10-20T14:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T14:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/691463\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T14:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T14:54:14","slug":"new-jersey-devils-the-western-conference-test-that-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/691463\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey Devils &#038; the Western Conference Test That Looms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"button-wrapper\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/devilsontherush.substack.com\/subscribe?coupon=6653595d&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Upgrade to Paid: Save 30% for 1 year&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\"><a class=\"button primary\" href=\"https:\/\/devilsontherush.substack.com\/subscribe?coupon=6653595d\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Upgrade to Paid: Save 30% for 1 year<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The New Jersey Devils are still finding their way early this season, but they will get a good test against the Western Conference over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Starting tonight against the Colorado Avalanche, the Devils play eight straight games against the Western Conference.<\/p>\n<p>That may seem daunting, but not all of their Western foes are challenges the Devils can\u2019t overcome. Either way, we\u2019ll learn plenty about this team.<\/p>\n<p>The Avalanche haven\u2019t gotten off to the scorching start they did last season, but that\u2019s not surprising. That\u2019s difficult to repeat.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the Avalanche look like one of the NHL\u2019s best teams. They have an expected goals share (xG%) of 56.8 percent, fifth in the NHL.<\/p>\n<p>They will be the Devils\u2019 stiffest test early this season, but they should get a bit of a reprieve after tonight\u2019s game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Upgrade to Paid: Save 30% for 1 year The New Jersey Devils are still finding their way early&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4],"class_list":["post-691463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-hockey","tag-nhl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117473815050028048","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}