New Jersey Devils Win Third Straight In Nail-Biter Against Sharks
The New Jersey Devils continued to show some offensive dominance with a 2-1 win over the struggling San Jose Sharks. They have been outshooting opponents by an insane margin and were flirting with 40 shots again while keeping the opposition closer to 20. In five games this season, the Devils are 2nd in shots per game at 39.2 and 1st in shots against at 21.2 as of Saturday afternoon.
Though they haven’t played against a good team yet, not a lot more can be asked of the players on the ice. As of right now, they look to be a positive goalie performance away from the playoffs.
The Good
As much as the Devils shouldn’t trust the goaltending, Mackenzie Blackwood had a really good game and only let in one goal finishing with a .955 save percentage. The goal by Kevin LaBanc was also about as close to an unstoppable shot as you can get and was something that would have beaten even a prime Martin Brodeur. Blackwood has been in the net for all of the Devils’ three-straight wins, which would have felt impossible a year ago. Maybe he can turn it around with this strong defensive core.
The Bratt-Hischier-Palat line was dominant again. Jesper Bratt continued his fantastic start with another assist. The three rarely are even playing in the defensive zone and have kept the high-energy forecheck going with some insane puck possession.
The other top-six line of Sharangovich-Hughes-Mercer wasn’t as good as the previous game, but both wingers still finished with a goal and the line was a positive contributor. Yegor Sharangovich‘s goal was a beautiful solo play. It was a great showing of not just skill but tenacity. He wanted the puck more than anyone on the ice, and even though he was a step behind the play managed to make a big play and strip the puck from the defender. The players in the top six look deadly right now.
Nathan Bastian had another great scoring chance, laid out some big hits, and with three minutes left on the PK, had a big shot block. The penalty kill has been amazing this season and he’s been a big part of it. The coaching staff can clearly see that if he is on the ice that late in the game. This is a man who knows his role and is playing it to the best of his ability.
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The Bad
Jack Hughes has been very close to scoring the last few games and should probably be closer to four goals on the season than one but he still has to cut down on the turnovers at least a little bit more. So far the Devils haven’t been capitalized on because of it but if he slows things down just a tiny bit like last season it’s an easy fix.