Despite Solid Effort, New Jersey Devils Suffer Season Sweep To Capitals
The New Jersey Devils played a strong afternoon game against the Washington Capitals on Sunday, but despite that fell for an eighth-straight time to be swept in the season series. The Caps are a very strong team, but obviously it’s not ideal to only gain two points in an eight-game stretch against any team, especially in a short season like this.
Kyle Palmieri was held out of the game and the rumor mill is in full swing. With the impending trade deadline, fans will need to keep a close eye on it. Due to his absence the Devils’ decided on putting the “A” on Miles Wood for the game as well, which was surprising but shows how they feel about him in a big way. Putting it on a heart and soul guy was great to see and could mean he takes a bigger role on and off the ice for the franchise sooner rather than later.
The Good
Nick Merkley found his way into another game and had another great one to show for it. He set the tone with an early goal and continued to show great chemistry with Travis Zajac, who is really performing well. They both ended up with a pair of points and a positive rating while making no bad defensive plays. That should keep them together as a pairing on the offensive side but things have been shaken up a lot more as of late. The only thing bad of note was Merkley was only given 11 minutes of ice time.
Ty Smith was a force all game and looked like he was 500 games into his career not half a season. He had 3 shots on goal and somewhere around 13 attempts on net all of which were smart plays. His hockey IQ is incredible and as he gets a little bigger and fully settled in he is going to be a terror to other teams.
Jesper Bratt has points in 9 of the last 11 games despite being quiet at times. People overlook him sometimes, especially with the talent being drafted, but they need consistent players and he has all the skill to be a core member for a long time. He was handling the puck well and pushing the play forward while maintaining possession which is real key for most modern teams systems. Being only 22, he still has some room to grow and his shot percentage on the year is way lower than it should be at a hair over 5%. His production is great and statistically should be higher which bodes well for the Devils.
The Bad
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Mackenzie Blackwood had a bad game. 14/19 on shots with a .737 a save percentage is not going to win any games. Some of the shots were impossible to stop, but he needed to make a few of those saves. The defense once again does need to cut down on the cross crease passes but it was not happening at all today.
Poor Jack Hughes is in a slump of bad luck that despite earlier predictions looks real hard to break out of. He made a solid play early driving in and sliding it while falling into the post that was an inch from going in. Later on he had a great chance close up and beat Samsonov again before ringing it off the post and out the other side and you could feel the frustration. His passing while not perfect was on point a number of times and this was shown best with the play late to Damon Severson. He flipped it to the open defender streaking in and gave him half the net to fire it in but alas it was not meant to be. The points have been so close for a month now and Hughes needs to, and is going to, break through real soon.
Looking ahead the Devils have two games against the lowly Buffalo Sabers who in one word are terrible. They however have also had the Devils number for a while now so it is in reality a must win for both franchises. They are missing key players so it would be the perfect situation to take advantage of for slumping players to turn it around.