March Meier shows up a day early as the New Jersey Devils finally win a game

We saw it coming from a mile away, and Christmas has come early. By Christmas, we mean the arrival of March Meier. Timo Meier has been better as of late, and he had a great performance at the Winter Olympics representing Switzerland. At one point, he was on pace to break the points record by an NHL Olympian (which was eventually broken by MVP and silver medalist Connor McDavid). 

It was expected that he would return to the Devils' lineup refreshed and ready to hit the ground running. Unfortunately, the Devils put up two stinkers coming out of the Olympic break, and they are not essentially out of the playoff race. 

Despite this, we will still welcome the arrival of March Meier a day early. 

Every year, Meier has been much better in March than in any other month. In his three March performances with the Devils, Meier has a combined 25 goals and 11 assists in March alone. He’s averaging 12 points per month. He has 53 goals in all the other months combined. 

On Saturday, the Devils saw that version of Meier. He was incredible against the St. Louis Blues. He sent a snipe of a shot past Jordan Binnington to put the Devils on the board in the second period. That lead would actually hold, which is a concept that’s lost on all Devils’ fans. Jack Hughes had a beautiful pass on the power play to Dougie Hamilton that sent a rocket past Binnington to score the second goal of the period. 

Meier’s goal sent the Devils forward, and he didn’t stop there. Outside his high-sticking penalty on Logan Mailloux, Meier’s game was close to perfect.

Overall, this is the best game we've seen from the Devils in a long time. It's been rare that every player has been in the positive in game score. Now, game score is flawed in a vacuum, but it's a fine comparison tool when looking at the game as a whole. Meier was dominant on both ends of the ice on Saturday afternoon.

It's unfortunate that the Devils have nothing to play for because we have evidence that Meier and Jack Hughes are ready to carry their lines to do something great. The rest of the team looks like they are skating in quicksand, but two stars are stepping up in a huge way.

For now, we will enjoy the wins when they come because they've been incredibly rare this season. If the Devils truly get March Meier, he might drag the Devils to a few more wins.