New Jersey Devils Finally End The Bad-Luck Losing Skid

The New Jersey Devils came into Wednesday night’s matchup against the Florida Panthers on a six-game losing skid (0-5-1). Their last point came on December 12th at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers and their last win came on December 7th against the Chicago Blackhawks.

They needed to end this bad streak in the worst way. In most of these games that they played, they were actually the better team for a lot of it but some bad luck caused them to lose. In the National Hockey League, never expect things to go as they did on that 13-game winning streak.

Now, this team knows that adversity can exist and they have to find ways to deal with it. It isn’t always easy as they even had some in this game against the Panthers.

For the second night in a row, a Staal brother scored a goal. This time, it was Eric Staal who gave the Florida Panthers a 1-0 lead. At that point, you figured that things might get ugly again for New Jersey against this equally as desperate Florida team.

The New Jersey Devils faced some adversity again but finally prevailed.

Just a few minutes later, however, the Devils were awarded a power play. After a New Jersey face-off win, Dougie Hamilton found Jack Hughes who made an amazing feed to Jesper Bratt for a goal. It was as pretty of a play as you can ask for from these three.

Jack Hughes is truly sensational as the pass he made was as good as any you’ll see this season. This was Jack’s 38th point in his 33rd game played which is really nice to see. Breaking the single season Devils points record (96) is fully on the table for him.

This also ended a 10-game goal drought for Bratt who desperately needed one. Clearly, that was important to him as after going down 2-1, he tied it again with his second of the game and 12th of the season. Now, Bratt has 33 points in 33 games played. Hopefully, he finds a way to stay on track.

Later in the third period, Jonas Siegenthaler shot one through traffic that was tipped in front by Yegor Sharangovich and it went in the net. For the first time in a while, the New Jersey Devils had a third-period lead.

Tomas Tatar scored one into the empty net in the final minute of the game to secure a 4-2 Devils win on the road. The slump is now over. Everyone can finally breathe.

There was a lot of bad luck on this losing streak. As mentioned before, there wasn’t perfect play obviously but there were some hot goalies, bad bounces, and not-so-great goaltending from the Devils. It is over now and time to move on.

Another player that deserves some praise is Mackenzie Blackwood. He made his first start since returning from injury and he was awesome. He made 34 saves on 36 Panthers shots to outduel Sergei Bobrovsky, He needed a win like that.

As long as the Devils continue to get good goaltending and all of the skaters do their job, the winning will become more consistent again. Their next chance will come on Friday with the big matchup on home ice against the Boston Bruins. This should be a good one.