The New Jersey Devils lost to the Philadelphia Flyers last night by a final score of 3-1. New Jersey actually outplayed Philly for the first two periods but they only came out of it tied 1-1. That is not good enough to win games. They need to be better at burying their chances otherwise there are going to be similar results. The Flyers are a significantly better team on paper right now so you have to take the good with the bad.
The New Jersey Devils have been giving us what we want so far this season.
As mentioned before, the New Jersey Devils are by no means the best team in the league. They probably aren’t a playoff team so what is the point of this season? Well, the point of this season is to see the right players take steps forward. In this game against the Flyers, there are things that happened that should excite people.
Jesper Bratt made his return to the NHL. He is late because of a contract, visa, and quarantine issue but it is better than late than never. The coach didn’t really ease him in either as he went straight to the top line with Jack Hughes and Andreas Johnsson. That was the best line by far. Hughes and Gusev are both so good and so young. They are going to make magic all season long and it is only going to get better as the years go on as well.
So far this season, Ty Smith has been brilliant as a rookie. He is the team’s second-leading scorer behind Hughes. That’s huge coming from the blue line. This is a player that the Devils are building around as they expect him to be there for a long time. In this game against Philly, he didn’t record a point, but he did make some nice defensive plays. There is a lot of work to do but he is a great piece for this team going forward.
Yegor Sharangovich has been a little quiet for the past few games but that doesn’t mean he isn’t wildly improved over last season. In 2019-20 he was a bottom-six AHL forward and this year he is a player trying to make himself noticeable in the NHL. At his stage of the game, he isn’t going to be great every game but he has the skills to make an impact.
They are 3-3-1 at this point but there is a long way to go in the season. The record at this point doesn’t matter, however. They have only played one game with Jesper Bratt and MacKenzie Blackwood has been on the COVID-19 list for a while now. Nico Hischier still isn’t back from his injury and they are still waiting for Sami Vatanen’s arrival. When this team finally hits the ice designed the way they were supposed to, they might impress some people even more.
As long as these young players continue to develop, this season will be considered a success. The cool thing is that there are even more good ones on the way. When Alex Holtz, Dawson Mercer, Kevin Bahl, and Nolan Foote amongst others are ready, that is when we can start worrying about wins and losses.
Now, New Jersey has the Buffalo Sabres next. That is a team that has had a similar start to them. It is going to be a tough challenge again as they also have some really good players to worry about. If the Devils play against the Sabres as they did in the first two periods of this Flyers game, they will have a chance to win. This is going to be an instance where the Devils play two straight afternoon games on back to back days. As much as wins and losses don’t really matter this season, it would be nice to see the Devils come out and play well against a foe of a similar skill level.