New Jersey Devils: Mistakes And Penalties Lead To Bad Loss

The New Jersey Devils weren’t able to get a big win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night. They could have used it but too many mistakes and penalties led to their ultimate demise. The Flyers took the game 5-3 and the only reason the Devils had a third was that Pavel Zacha scored a garbage-time goal really late. It was a tough game but there are plenty of things to learn from in this one.

The New Jersey Devils need to limit their mistakes and stay out of the box.

The Devils took a lot of bad penalties. They also put themselves in a position for the refs to make a bad call (the Kyle Palmieri penalty). They allowed two power-play goals on five penalties and that seems to be a problem. They don’t seem to be using muscle to impose their will on their opponents while they work on the power play.

For example, both of Philadelphia’s power-play goals were the exact same thing. The Devils allowed James van Riemsdyk to park himself right in front of Scott Wedgewood without punishment and that was the difference in the game. He tipped two Ivan Provorov shots past Wedgewood. The Devils were in an early 2-0 hole as a result. They need to be tougher in front of their own net and be better about letting shots through traffic.

Speaking of Scott Wedgewood, he had an up and down game. Like his most recent game against the New York Islanders, he made a lot of impressive saves. He also had an issue with flopping around his goal crease later in the game. After the Devils battled back to get the game tied, Wedgewood being unable to stay on his feet started the downfall of the game. He is a good backup but he needs to be better about this.

It was nice to see the Devils stick with their game after going down 2-0. Last year’s team probably would have gone on to lose 4-0 but they fought back. Michael McLeod got New Jersey on the board with his first career NHL goal. It took him a lot longer than he probably wanted but he is finally on the board in the National Hockey League. Hopefully, he can start putting the puck in the net with a bit of regularity.

Another player that New Jersey needed to get going was Andreas Johnsson. You can’t say that he is fully going yet but he had his best game of the season. Johnsson made a great play to get the puck on the net and Travis Zajac tipped it past Brian Elliot to tie the game. It is Johnsson’s first point in a New Jersey Devils sweater. Like McLeod, we can only hope that this starts a stretch of good play.

This wasn’t the best game for them but as mentioned before, but they can work on some things in practice and certain players can feel some momentum. The biggest thing for them is that the players that were going well keep it up and those who are finally getting going keep it up. Their next chance comes on Thursday when they have another home game against the Philadelphia Flyers.