The New Jersey Devils were blown out by the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday. It shouldn’t really surprise anybody as New Jersey is a lottery team while the Hurricanes get ready to try and win the Stanley Cup.
They are definitely good enough to do so. The Hurricanes, not the Devils. All they need to do is make sure that whoever is in the net plays to the best of their ability. If they do that, then they can for sure go on to do some really cool stuff in the postseason.
For the Devils, however, they had their second straight game where Nolan Foote was an impressive young player. It was only his sixth game of the season as he now has 12 in his career. In those six games so far this season he has two goals and an assist. He has been extra noticeable over the last few.
We all knew that he can score goals. He has had a knack for that for a long time and his shot is lethal which feeds into that narrative of him being a goal scorer. New Jersey needs that type of player which is all fine and dandy but Foote is also better than just a pure goal scorer.
Nolan Foote has looked outstanding for the New Jersey Devils in his short stint.
In the loss to the Ottawa Senators earlier in the week, Foote scored twice and used two different skillsets to do it. There was some good play around him on the goals but he deserves to have this praise.
Where he really was impressive, however, was his play that he made to get Jesper Bratt on the board against the Hurricanes. He took the puck and made a really nice pass to find Bratt low in the zone and he didn’t miss. Making others around you better is a big key to being a good offensive player in this league.
With other stud goal scorers potentially around him on the wing like Yegor Sharangovich, Alexander Holtz, and Jesper Bratt, centerman like Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes will be able to take full advantage as the years go along.
So far, Foote has met a lot of people’s expectations if not exceeded them in these few games that he has played this year. The guy on the ice right now is a lot different than the one who made his NHL debut last year.
Foote and the Devils have one last game. It will be a chance for him to play at home against the Detroit Red Wings. This is game 82 for New Jersey so sending them out strong would be really nice to see. If the young guys like Nolan Foote play well, the sky is the limit for this team’s future.