New Jersey Devils Drop Three In A Row With Poor Effort Versus Sabres
The New Jersey Devils have dropped a third game since returning and a second to the lowly Buffalo Sabres who may have more wins against the Devils than the rest of the Eastern division at the end of the season. The Sabres are really the Devils kryptonite as of late, and they need to beat a bad team more often than not if they want to make a playoff push. The Sabres are also lacking on the back end big time and putting up one goal when the game was basically over is just not enough. All that said, big props to Linus Ullmark, who looked like Dominik Hasek in the last minute of the game.
The Good
Nikita Gusev scored his second of the season. While he was not exactly playing well prior to it, all it takes sometimes is putting up a point or two so maybe this can lead to a big turnaround for him.
Michael McLeod had a solid game. In the first period, he showed his two-way skill by backchecking hard and keeping Taylor Hall to the outside on a rush not allowing the former Hart Trophy winner to get a shot and forcing him to turn the puck over. Miles Wood also had a backcheck where he was pushing as hard as he does on any breakaway and covered the open man forcing Buffalo to take the shot, a much more low-percentage play. This whole line’s tenacity continues to impress and they were firing on all cylinders on Tuesday night, so they should remain together moving forward as the points will come again.
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Dmitry Kulikov had another solid game and had a very solid backcheck to cover for a rare mistake against Rasmus Asplund in the first. His reliability continues to impress, and he even managed a good rebound chance in the third period when the Devils really needed one.
The Bad
The penalty kill rocked a solid 50% night and once again is doing nothing to help the team as they continue to beat the proverbial dead horse. With this as a glaring weakness and the lack of goal scoring over the last 3 games they can not afford to let in more than a pair and having a guaranteed goal against a game at best just on a penalty wont cut it. The third line was invisible for the entirety of the night. Despite Gusev scoring on one of his two open-net shots with 30 seconds left, he struggled again to generate anything offensively. The top six played well enough but not putting up any goals wont win them games and a big night will be needed on Thursday to turn things back around.