The New Jersey Devils are coming off the most embarrassing loss of the season, faced with their most important stretch. This team needs to play much better to continue to be taken seriously.
The New Jersey Devils have been one of the biggest surprises of the season so far. Despite coming into the season with very little expectations, they’ve taken the hockey world by storm and rocketed up the Metropolitan Division. They currently sit tied for second place with the New York Islanders, while being one point out of first place with a game at hand.
That could literally disappear by the end of the week. Tuesday night, the Devils start a home and home with the Columbus Blue Jackets, the team currently sitting in first place. Right after that, the Devils take on their biggest rivals, the New York Rangers.
The entire division has been on fire as of late. Outside the Philadelphia Flyers, no other Metro team is under .500 in the past ten games. What’s worse, the Islanders and Blue Jackets have both won eight of their last ten.
The room for error for the Devils is out the window. Saturday’s blowout against the Arizona Coyotes needs to be an anomaly if the team will continue to contend.
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The thing about the Devils hot start to the season is they haven’t played within the Metropolitan Division at all. In 26 games to start, the Devils have played two against their own division. They beat the Rangers on October 14th, and lost the night before to the Washington Capitals.
After this week, the Devils still have 23 games against the Metro. That means what the Devils have done up until this point could get erased pretty easily.
Many will point out that the Devils had a similar start to last season, and fell to the point of winning the number one pick. However, I think it’s pretty clear that this team is much different. It’s time to show it on the ice against the rest of the division.