New Jersey Devils: Eastern Conference Now A Four-Team Race
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils have been lucky in scoreboard watching over the past few days, watching some teams behind them lose. Now, there’s only one team that can knock them out of the playoffs.
Scoreboard watching is the worst. It’s what fans are forced to do in a tight playoff race when your team is not playing. Over the past two weeks, there has been a lot of scoreboard watching for New Jersey Devils fans. The team has been up and down over the past two months, and because of those downs they are barely holding on to a playoff spot.
Luckily, some of the chasing teams have fallen off, and on Tuesday night it looks like it officially became a four-team race.
The Carolina Hurricanes held a three-goal lead going into the third period against the Boston Bruins. It seemed like a sure win, adding to the faint playoff hopes of the Metropolitan rival. However, five Bruins goals later, the Canes playoff hopes look all but dead.
If the Hurricanes found a way to win that game, they find themselves five points out with 12 games to go. That seems doable. With the loss, they are seven points out with all of the opponents having games at hand. This comes right after getting crushed by the New York Rangers.
The Hurricanes are followed by the New York Islanders and Rangers. Both those teams have even worse chances of making an improbable run to the playoffs. It seems like those three teams are out of the playoff hunt.
That leaves the Devils, Florida Panthers, Philadelphia Flyers and Columbus Blue Jackets all fighting for three playoff spots.
We’ve talked about the easy schedules facing the Panthers and Blue Jackets, while the Devils face a Western Conference swing against some of the best in that conference. The Flyers have a pretty easy schedule, with only five games against playoff teams in their last 12, but they’ve lost six of their last seven. Nothing is coming easy to them right now.
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We should know a lot more about this race after this weekend. The Devils play the Golden Knights on Wednesday, then a back-to-back against the Kings and Ducks. The Flyers play three division games in a row, facing the Blue Jackets, Capitals and Hurricanes. Columbus looks to add to their winning streak against the Flyers on Thursday then Ottawa on Saturday. Then Florida takes on the Bruins on Thursday and MVP candidate Connor McDavid on Saturday.
There’s a lot still to be decided over the next three weeks. Things will flip and flop through the standings. Every game feels like the intensity rises up three levels. For the Devils to survive with a playoff spot, they need wins every game possible. At least they only need to out win one of these teams to make the playoffs.