After going down 0-2-0 on the season, the New Jersey Devils needed a reset. They had played well in both losses but they need to clean some things up in order to turn those losses into wins. It would also help them if their best players started producing instead of all the near misses.
Things weren’t looking good for them early in game number three of the season against the Anaheim Ducks. They needed (at least we thought) a fast start in this one but they didn’t get it at all.
Jakob Silverberg, although he has had some monster seasons in his NHL career, only scored five goals all of last season. That is why the Devils allowing him to score two to make it 2-0 really hurt. It looked like New Jersey was on the fast track to three straight losses and a 0-3-0 record.
It was easy to be down on Mackenzie Blackwood and the rest of the team at that point. Although they were mostly outplaying the Ducks (which was the story of the first two games), they were down by multiple goals on the scoreboard.
Some changes were made to the lines, Blackwood settled in, and they got rolling. Blackwood made a couple of huge high-danger saves when down 2-0 that literally saved the game. If they went down 3-0, that would have been so deflating.
The New Jersey Devils finally earned their first win of the season on Tuesday.
From there, the offense finally broke through and buried one of their chances. Jack Hughes did his thing in the offensive zone which set up a great chance for Ryan Graves. The save was made and Ondrej Palat scored his first goal in a New Jersey Devils uniform. From there, they were off.
Later on in the period, Nico Hischier scored to tie the game at two. It was a great time for the captain to get his first of the season after missing the first game as he was still at the ending stage of recovering from his injury.
33 seconds into the third period, Jesper Bratt made a fantastic play to find Dougie Hamilton for the go-ahead goal. Hischier also picked up an assist on that tally as three of their four best players took charge.
Dawson Mercer got on the board to make it 4-2 at 12:49 of the third period thanks to an amazing play by Jack Hughes and Yegor Sharangovich. That was amazing for everyone as it felt from there like the Devils would for sure be able to hold on and win. They did.
Although Yegor Sharangovich, Jack Hughes, and Jesper Bratt are still looking for their first goals, the points are starting to come in bunches which is really important. They will certainly score but creating offense in any way is very important for these guys.
In the case of Hischier and Hughes, these are the two most important players in the organization. The two former number-one overall picks are incredible players that need to lead this team. Each of them had two points in this one which were their first two of the season.
Now, we can expect these two in addition to everyone else keep it going. The floodgates might be open now and it is time to win. When your best players are your best players, you will have a greater opportunity to earn victories.
Playing better than your opponent doesn’t mean anything if they don’t win the game. Their next chance to keep this going will come on Thursday night against the New York Islanders.