New Jersey Devils Find A Way To Sweep California Trip

The New Jersey Devils earned two pretty convincing wins in southern California. They outscored the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings 11-4. Both Vitek Vanecek and Mackenzie Blackwood earned big wins on the road. There was lots of secondary scoring from both forwards and defensemen, but studs like Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes led the way offensively. That’s becoming more of the norm.

These awesome performances set them up to sweep the California road trip with an afternoon tilt with the San Jose Sharks. With sweeps in both Eastern and Western Canada already, sweeping this California trip would be incredibly impressive.

Consider yourself impressed. The New Jersey Devils beat the Sharks at SAP Center on Monday afternoon in the most dramatic fashion possible. In fact, it came within seconds of failure. Thankfully, the Devils have Jack Hughes.

The New Jersey Devils found a big win in San Jose on Monday afternoon.

It looked like it was going to be easy, however, as Nico Hischier made a great play to find Ryan Graves, who scored just 29 seconds into the first period. From there, however, the Sharks took over.

Timo Meier and Erik Karlsson improved their trade value by scoring big goals to make it 2-1 in favor of the Sharks. However, 11 seconds into the third period, Nico Hischier got the game back to tied at two. It was a great play made off the faceoff with Jesper Bratt and Ondrej Palat.

Unfortunately, Jack Hughes took his second penalty of the season (which is truly remarkable, especially since he didn’t take one last season), and the Sharks took advantage of it in the third period. Nick Bonino’s goal wasn’t on the power play, but it was right after it expired.

Jack Hughes made up for it by scoring a goal with 10 seconds left in regulation. The goal forced overtime with the goalie pulled. Overtime was magnificent in terms of scoring chances, but Vitek Vanecek and James Reimer were too good, and a shootout was needed.

Everyone who went in the shootout was stopped except for Tomas Tatar, so the Devils completed the sweep. They didn’t play very well for most of the game, but they found a way to get the two points. Even a guy like Jack Hughes wasn’t himself but found a way to make an impact.

The Devils are now off for a couple of days before trying to end the road trip on an even higher note as they get ready to face the Seattle Kraken. The Kraken are a much better team than they were last year and are probably going to the playoffs, so this should be fun to watch.