Toronto Maple Leafs Send New Jersey Devils Back Down To Earth

The New Jersey Devils came to play the Toronto Maple Leafs with some momentum but came back down to earth as the Leafs owned them.

The New Jersey Devils went north of the border with some momentum on their side. Over the weekend, they defeated the Washington Capitals, who lead the NHL in points, and then the Tampa Bay Lightning, who were on a ten-game winning streak. There is no doubt that it was a strong weekend as they look to climb back into things. They came down to Earth, however, against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night.

The Devils were not good for most of the game. They allowed the Maple Leafs to dictate play for the first 45 minutes of the game. That led to the Leafs eventually leading the game 6-1 at one point. If it weren’t for a Blake Coleman hat trick, the game would have looked even worse for the Devils on the scoreboard. P.K. Subban scored with the goalie pulled to make it interesting at the end before Auston Matthews completed a hat trick of his own with an empty netter.

The Devils were in rough shape before Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner started creating goals so once those two started to click it was game over for New Jersey. They didn’t really do a good job of limiting chances for the Toronto stars and that was their demise. Matthews had his first hat trick since scoring four goals in his NHL debut and John Tavares was the third star of the game with one goal and two assists. Mitch Marner and William Nylander were also both factors for Toronto so the Devils did themselves no favors against any of them.

Louis Domingue didn’t have his best game of the season in net for the Devils. He was relieved by Cory Schneider who saw his first NHL action since November. He served as the backup on Sunday night before needing to come in relief in this one. He played well as he only surrendered a goal to Auston Matthews. There was nothing he could do on that one. Hopefully, this is a sign that Schneider could come into the NHL again sometime and be a full-time starter.

The Blake Coleman story is really gaining some steam. He was simply awesome in this game despite the result. He scored his 16th, 17th, and 18th goal of the season in this one. He is going to blow past the 20 goal plateau and has a chance to reach 30. It is extra impressive because he isn’t amongst the ice time leaders on this team and he doesn’t get that much time on the power play. He is seriously looking like an integral part of this team going forward.

The Devils are right back at it on Thursday night. They need to put this loss behind them as they have to go back to Washington and play the Washington Capitals again. They defeated them there on Saturday night so doing it again is going to be very tough. Anything you can do once you can do twice, but it is going to be even more difficult this time.