The New Jersey Devils are going to play the Winnipeg Jets in their home opener and they should be able to expose their biggest weakness.
The day has finally come. After a long and eventful offseason, it is finally a New Jersey Devils game day! They are going to play their first game of the season and have many new faces to be excited about. It starts off with the return of Taylor Hall from a long injury. He hasn’t played an NHL game since the end of 2018. He will be joined by some new faces like P.K. Subban and Wayne Simmonds as far as veterans go. Then there are going to be some players ready to make their NHL debuts like Nikita Gusev, Jesper Boqvist, and number one overall pick Jack Hughes.
There is no doubt that there is plenty of excitement surrounding this season and rightfully so. They are going to open against the Winnipeg Jets tonight and that matchup should play into the hands of the Devils. The Jets are very formidable at the forward positions but they are weak on the back end. They went from one of the league’s best defense groups to one of the worst.
They played last night at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers and the Rangers exposed that defense bad. The Jets were able to score some goals but the run and gun style that was needed played into the hands of the Rangers. Now, on the second half of a back to back, the Jets are going to Newark where the Devils will be fresh and ready to go.
The loss of Jacob Trouba and Dustin Byfuglien has really hurt them and the Devils have the players to show why. Guys like Hall, Hischier, and Hughes should be able to expose them and use that weakness to their advantage. The Devils are going to use their speed and skill and hopefully an underwhelming Jets back end helps them get their legs underneath them.
Due to the Jets playing the Rangers last night, they are likely going to use Laurent Brossoit in net instead of Connor Hellebuyck which would also play into the Devils favor. It isn’t a guarantee and the Jets could elect to use Hellebuyck again but that would certainly be a weird move this early in the season. No goalie should be taken lightly but you would always rather play a backup over the starter.
No matter what, Devils fans should be very excited about this game and what might be ahead this season. If the Devils could expose this weak Winnipeg defense they could use the win to propel themselves into a good spot to keep it rolling all season long.