New Jersey Devils: Outstanding Results Over Tough Weekend
The New Jersey Devils played as good of a weekend as we could have expected when you consider the two teams that they had to play.
The New Jersey Devils sat on Friday night knowing they had a very daunting back to back ahead of them. On Saturday they had to go the nation’s capital to play the Washington Capitals who went into the weekend with the top overall seed in the entire National Hockey League. The Devils came out and beat them on the back of Nico Hischier. It was announced before puck drop that he wouldn’t be attending the All-Star game because Capitals’ forward T.J. Oshie won the “Last Man In” vote.
Nico went out there in front of Oshie and his Capital teammates and put the Devils on his back. He scored two big goals that led the Devils to their 5-1 victory. Louis Domingue was awesome in net as well to help the Devils win. It was an impressive first leg on the back to back. They knew that the following day would be just as hard if not harder.
The Capitals, as previously mentioned, were on top of the league standings. Then the next day they had to play the Tampa Bay Lightning who had won ten straight games. They defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 1-0 the night before while the Devils were playing Washington to make it ten in a row. The Devils knew they would need to hang on tight against a team that is that hot.
About an hour before the game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the team announced that they have parted ways with general manager Ray Shero. It was a shocking move for everyone to learn at that time. The team hasn’t lost a bunch of games in a row or given the team any reasons for this to be something we saw coming. The show did go on though with an elite team in the building on the other side.
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They did defeat them 3-1 to cap off an outstanding weekend. The Lightning threw everything at the Devils and they were able to hang on. Domingue got the start for the second straight day and he answered the bell against his own team. Some timely goals from Andy Greene and Travis Zajac allowed Domingue to do his thing before Miles Wood sealed the victory with an empty-net goal.
Jack Hughes had missed six games due to injury but he came back in the second game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. He looked good back from injury and he even collected an assist on the goal by Greene. Hughes is one of the two biggest keys to this team’s future success so it is good seeing him play and contribute. It was also impressive to watch Nikita Gusev play in this one. He is just like Jack in terms of the fact that he is showing that he can be an elite scorer in the NHL.
Things are on the up and up with this team right now. They have fired their head coach, fired their GM, and traded away the face of the franchise over the span of a month which makes things very interesting. This team could very well still have a very bright future. Hopefully, they are able to keep it up when they are north of the border on Tuesday night to play the Toronto Maple Leafs. Another of the league’s best teams waiting to see what the Devils can bring.