Everything went right for the New Jersey Devils on Thursday

The New Jersey Devils came into their game on Thursday against the New York Rangers with mixed expectations. For one, they had 100 points in the standings with a few weeks left which means that they are having a really good season.

However, something felt off about their game in the recent weeks leading up to this one. It is clear that this team just needs a little extra motivation to get going and that is what they got on Thursday night at the Prudential Center.

For one, Devils vs Rangers is always incredible. It died down a little bit while the Devils were a terrible team but now both of them are really good. They also each landed a big trade chip at the trade deadline as Timo Meier is a Devil and Patrick Kane is a Ranger.

The other catch is that the Rangers came in with 98 points so just two fewer than the Devils. A Rangers win would tie them with the Devils in standings points. Both teams needed to dig deep in this one.

The New Jersey Devils did everything right on Thursday night on home ice.

The Devils dug just a bit deeper as they pulled out a 2-1 victory. Early in the contest, Erik Haula put home his 10th of the season to give the Devils a 1-0 lead. It was just. a great play as Dougie Hamilton earned his 50th assist of the season by sending one for Haula to tip in.

Later in the first period, New Jersey would be awarded a power play and they did not miss. Nico Hischier found Jack Huges who played a little catch with Timo Meier before Meier put it past Shesterkin. That would be the end of the scoring for the Devils.

From there, New Jersey locked it down for the most part. Outside of a Chris Kreider power-play goal, the Rangers weren’t able to get much. They had their looks but Vitek Vanecek was strong. They also saw good games from John Marino and Ryan Graves in front of him.

To be honest, the Devils were great in this game but Igor Shesterkin made some spectacular saves too. There was not a single goal scored in the third period so as mentioned before, that 2-1 final score would hold strong.

That wasn’t the only good thing that happened to the Devils on Thursday either. The Carolina Hurricanes, who entered the night three points ahead of the Devils, were going up against the Detroit Red Wings.

The two teams went into the third period tied. When it seemed like the game was destined for overtime, Jake Walman scored with three seconds left in regulation to give the Red Wings the win. More importantly, Carolina didn’t get anything.

Now, the Devils sit just one point behind the Hurricanes for first place in the Metropolitan Division. It is going to be hard to take over first and stay there but the Devils can possibly go on a run. That starts on Saturday night on the road against the Chicago Blackhawks.