The New Jersey Devils came out on Tuesday as bad as any team could in a National Hockey League game. The New York Rangers took a quick 2-0 lead in a Prudential Center half-filled with Rangers fans. However, once the first period ended mercifully, New Jersey took over.
The Devils fans in attendance were there to witness one of the best games that the team would play all season long. After that dud of a first period, they came out firing on all cylinders. It was great to watch but you can never be sure that they will be able to get it tied with the league’s best goalie in net for them.
In the best period of the season, they dropped five goals on Igor Shesterkin and the Rangers to take a 5-2 lead. It was magnificent as they ended up winning the game as a whole by a final score of 7-4. As mentioned before, it was one of the better matches of the entire year.
The biggest key to this comeback win was New Jersey’s top players. Of course, when you talk about New Jersey’s best players, the conversation starts and ends with Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes. The two first overall picks have been amazing in 2022.
In order for this team to have sustained success, these two need to be stars. They were just that on Tuesday as they each had two points. Hischier was the setup man of the night as his two points were goals while Hughes scored his 20th and 21st goals of the season.
All of the New Jersey Devils’ top players played well in their win vs the New York Rangers.
Not far behind them on the “importance” list is Jesper Bratt. He is their leading scorer and picked up two more assists in this one. He also scored a beautiful goal (that would have been assisted by Hughes and Hischier) but it was waved off for offsides. Even with that, Bratt was one of the keys to victory in this one.
Dawson Mercer and Yegor Sharangovich each scored in this game as well. They are two young players with just a little bit of NHL experience but have been successful so far. Both of them are looking to be a part of this core for a long time and they just might. Each of their goals was their 16th of the season. Sharangovich also picked up an assist.
Lots of other players played well but another one that deserves some serious recognition for this game against the Rangers is Ryan Graves. As a former draft pick of the Rangers, he is certainly having himself a really nice year.
He scored a goal (his 6th of the season) and added an assist (his 20th of the season) to help win the game from the back end. He deserves to be a New Jersey Devils defenseman for a long time. Hopefully, the rest of the defense fills in around him along with Dougie Hamilton and Damon Severson.
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This was a great game for the New Jersey Devils. It ended a long series winning streak for the Rangers. We hate to see the Rangers have any winning streak, but we especially need it to end when it’s against the Devils. Things turn around quickly, however, as the Devils have to head up to Toronto to play the Maple Leafs on Wednesday.