It’s been a rough time for hockey in New Jersey. The Devils have been doing nothing but losing and getting injured for the better part of a month. Somehow, the list of injuries got worse in the past 24 hours.
Two of the Devils' young contributors, rookie Arseny Gritsyuk and second-year defenseman Simon Nemec, are going to miss extended time after injuries that seemingly popped out of nowhere. Gritsyuk has apparently been dealing with something, and it finally caused him to miss games. He won’t play this weekend.
Nemec’s injury sounds even worse. Head coach Sheldon Keefe didn’t get into the specifics, but he did say this “wasn’t a day-to-day” injury. That sounds more like a week-to-week injury than anything.
The New Jersey Devils showed they can overcome their injuries, no matter how seemingly insurmountable
So, we have to add Nemec and Gritsyuk to the list of absences that also include Jack Hughes, Evgenii Dadonov, Timo Meier, Brett Pesce, Zack MacEwen, and Johnny Kovacevic.
On top of everything, the team is about 16 hours removed from the Quinn Hughes trade, where they tried and failed to get the second-best defenseman in the National Hockey League. Oh, and his two brothers play for the Devils.
The Devils are putting out a lineup with eight backups. They are facing a team they lost to earlier in the season, 4-1. The Anaheim Ducks are one of the surprises of the Western Conference. Its young roster boasts one of the best offenses in the league. So, a defense that included a line of Dennis Cholowski and Colton White would be no match, right?
The Devils won this game the only way they were going to win this game. They completely outworked the Ducks. They got to loose pucks. They were opportunistic with their opportunities. They didn’t make massive mistakes, and they killed penalties.
Stefan Noesen scored his second goal of the season on a nice feed from Juho Lammikko, who got his first point of the year. Cody Glass scored a goal, as did Connor Brown on an empty net. All four lines looked dominant at times. The fourth line of Angus Crookshank, Luke Glendening, and Xavier Parent was formidable.
After taking over the game in the second period, the Devils hunkered down in the third period and didn’t give the Ducks much. They played a shutdown game instead of an aggressive one, and it worked. They limited the Ducks to three high-danger chances, and Jake Allen stopped all of them.
The Devils needed a win like this. They’ve been losing and looking like the worse team on the ice for weeks. For at least one afternoon, the Devils were the better team, and they were rewarded with a 4-1 win.