The New Jersey Devils have been a massive disappointment up until this point, but after a huge win in Carolina things could be turning around.
One win a season does not make, but this was a really big win for the New Jersey Devils. They went into Carolina about as down trodden as possible. They had blown leads in three straight games and in six of their first 11 games. It was rough to say the least.
Then, on Saturday night, about 24 hours since the last blown lead, they were back on the ice on the road against the Hurricanes. The Devils lost three away games by a combined score of 14-2. Now, they were taking on the clear second best team in the Metropolitan Division. They had only lost one game at home all season.
There were times when the Devils could have given up. They went down 1-0 early, and ended the first period tied 2-2. After taking the lead in the second period, they blew it about 10 minutes later. Seemed like a typical Devils game. However, this time they stopped their opponent from scoring in the entire third period.
Mackenzie Blackwood was just good enough to win, which is more than we can hope for at this point from any of the Devils goalies. He was playing on two straight nights, and the Devils did a good job of keeping those high-danger chances away from Blackwood in the third period. The Hurricanes were only able to muster one 5v5 HDCF in the third. Even when accounting for the power play, the Hurricanes only had three such chances.
The Devils had said they wanted to build off the positives of their overtimes losses this past week, but that’s hard to let sink in when the losing continues. Now that they finally have one in the win column, this is something they can really build off of. We know Carolina is a good team. So do the Devils. The fact they were able to beat them when it mattered is the best building block of the season.
The Devils will spend the next week and a half on the road, before finally coming back to The Rock on November 13th. If the Devils can find a way to take five points in these matchups, the season will look totally different in an instant. That would give them 15 points in 16 games, and quickly on the road to recovery. Heck, we might even get optimistic if things continue this way.