The New Jersey Devils came into Monday night’s game after a rare loss. It came on Friday night to the New York Islanders who put together a great effort on the road to beat the Devils. In this Monday night game, New Jersey needed a bounce-back effort against the New York Rangers.
It wasn’t but a few weeks ago when the New Jersey Devils went into Madison Square Garden and beat the New York Rangers. They wanted to get back there and do just that in this one as they were across the Hudson once again.
It started off well as Jonas Siegenthaler scored early to give the New Jersey Devils a 1-0 lead. A few minutes later, Jack Hughes made a remarkable play to find Dawson Mercer who made it 2-0. Before some fans were in their seats, the Devils seemed to have complete control.
Unfortunately, that isn’t how hockey works. Pretty much any team can come back from pretty much any (realistic) deficit. The Rangers clearly knew that as they battled hard from that moment onward.
The New Jersey Devils let the New York Rangers get back in the game.
Chris Kreider got New York on the board late in the first period so the Devils’ lead was cut in half. Next thing you know, however, Jack Hughes came down the wing and scored a big goal to get the lead back to two.
Hughes would later be awarded a penalty shot. A goal here would have put the Devils up 4-1 but it would not be. Igor Shesterkin made the save and gave all the momentum back to his teammates.
Vincent Trocheck scored on the power play thanks to a nice tip of an Adam Fox shot. That unit is filthy and should be treated as such. The worst part of it all is that Kaapo Kakko scored seven seconds later to tie the game up.
Once the game got to overtime, each team collected a point and left it all on the ice. The Devils opened with the lethal trio of Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Dougie Hamilton.
Both teams had their time with the puck but Filip Chytil scored in overtime to give the Rangers the comeback win by a final score of 4-3. It was a tough way for the Devils to lose. Shesterkin making that save on Jack Hughes’ penalty shot might have been the turning point of the game.
So far this season, both teams have now taken a 2-0 lead over one another and lost the game. It is obvious that the rivalry was down for a while because of the state of the team but now it is ready to get fun again. Both teams have a long way to but are incredibly fun to watch play each other.