Vitek Vanecek Is Positively Impacting New Jersey Devils
Tomas Tatar scored the only New Jersey Devils goal on Monday night as they took on the Boston Bruins in their fifth preseason game. It was a nice goal to stack on what has been a really nice camp for Tatar who is looking to make an impact this season.
When your team only scores one goal, however, you need your goalie to be perfect in order to win. Jack Hughes amongst others had their chances but were snakebitten which put some pressure on Vitek Vanecek. He delivered.
Now, it was the Bruins B team so it wasn’t as hard as it is going to be in the regular season when you have guys like Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Taylor Hall, and Patrice Bergeron shooting on you but the Devils didn’t have their full team either.
Vanecek made 24 saves on 24 shots in his most recent performance. It doesn’t matter who is shooting. It is his job to stop the puck no matter what. So far this preseason, he has done that at a high level. This game was a good one in what we hope is a long list of good games with his new team.
The New Jersey Devils are hoping that Vitek Vanecek helps them win a lot more.
Vanecek has a chance to make a huge impact on this team. The goaltending was injured and suspect in 2021-22 which held the Devils back as they tried to take a step towards competing. Now, here in 2022-23, good goaltending might actually be there.
He is going to split time with Mackenzie Blackwood who has a track record of being a game breaker despite being hurt and inconsistent last year. If Vanecek keeps playing well and Blackwood bounces back, this could be one of the best goaltending duos in the Metropolitan Division.
A positive impact is what the Devils need this year. We expect that their forwards and defenseman are going to be much-improved thanks to some additions and development to their core. That could mean that this great goalie duo playing well could be the difference in making the playoffs or not.
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There are still a couple of more preseason games to play and we should have a good idea of if this can become a reality by then. At the same time, we might need to see a few regular season games before anybody can get really excited but Vanecek’s arrival should really help. We can only hope that he keeps this up.