New Jersey Devils: No Question About It I Am Ready To Get Hurt Again

The New Jersey Devils are 3-0 in the preseason and they’ve looked incredibly impressive in doing so. The top line of Jack Hughes and Yegor Sharangovich has looked incredible no matter who is playing with them. Dawson Mercer and Alex Holtz have both looked impressive to the point that they probably need to find a place on this roster. The power play looks much better after a rough first game and the penalty kill looks serviceable.

The hype is real folks. After three years where Devils fans went into the season with optimism just to get blindsided by losses, one would think we’d force them to prove something before we fall under their spell. Nope. It took preseason games to be all in on this season.

The offseason really helped. Dougie Hamilton, Tomas Tatar, Jonathan Bernier, and Ryan Graves all look really good so far this preseason. Bernier especially looked good in his first full game in a Devils uniform. He made 24 saves on 25 shots against the New York Rangers. Despite the low shot total, it was not necessarily an easy night for him. He faced six high-danger shots against, and he stopped all six. That includes this insane save.

Hamilton was a workhorse in his first action. He played close to 24 minutes on the ice. He was good at every mode of play, and the impact on the power play was already palpable. After looking really bad with the man advantage on Wednesday, the Devils were able to put up five total chances with Hamilton on the ice during the power play.

Tatar ended up scoring in his first game in a Devils uniform, and Ryan Graves was able to keep the opposing team off the board. They did exactly what they were brought here to do. Tatar’s underlying numbers weren’t great, but some say that might be more a knock on Pavel Zacha at center than anything.

The point being, the Devils are sucking us in again. Things look like they are falling into place. They even sent an AHL roster to Bridgeport to take on the New York Islanders, and they won in overtime. Sharangovich scored the game-winner in the extra period, and he’s another player who has looked phenomenal in the preseason.

This could be setting ourselves up for disaster. Everything looked great in the 2019 preseason before it literally fell apart on game one. It’s just hard to not get hyped up for hockey right now. Look at the other sports in New York. The Mets are breaking records for being this bad after a hot start. The New York Yankees are blowing a huge Wild Card lead in the final days of the season. The Jets and Giants went winless in the first month of the NFL season. Even the surprising Rutgers team let everyone down with a poor effort against Ohio State. Devils fans need this. Heck, I need this. Please don’t let us down again.