Recap

The New Jersey Devils fell to the Dallas Stars 5-4 in a game that could have easily gotten way out of hand early on. Just three minutes in, Kyle Palmieri scored from in front off of a beautiful feed from Andy Greene. From that point on Dallas took complete control over the game. Goals from Jamie Benn, Miro Heiskanen, and Tyler Seguin got the Stars out to a 3-1 lead in which the shots were as lopsided as 27-2 at one point.

Bratt put home a loose puck from the slot to cut into the deficit, but Seguin scored shortly after to bump it back to a two-goal lead at 4-2. Stafford and Boyle would each put in a goal in the closing minutes of the second period and somehow this was a tie game going into the third. Rookie Miro Heiskanen would score again on a drive to the net in what would become the game-winning goal for Dallas. New Jersey showed some very good fight in this one, but they were simply over-matched. Jamie Benn left this game with an injury following a huge hit from Miles Wood, and Andy Greene also left with an undisclosed injury.

Takeaways

Road woes continue… This game may have finished as a one-goal game, but it certainly didn’t look that close for most of it. Once Dallas began to push, New Jersey simply didn’t have an answer outside of Blackwood standing on his head save after save. Defensive zone coverage was lackluster, to say the least, as Dallas continually was able to run shortside passes to the slot while cutting behind the net, which did give Blackwood some trouble and led to the opening goal by Benn.

Blackwood still played strong… If you were to simply look at the goals against in this one, it would be easy to say Blackwood had a bad game, but it was quite the contrary. Blackwood was under siege all night, facing one-on-one opportunities on seemingly every single shot. And the only reason the Devils even had a chance to try and come back in this was because of him. Blackwood finished with 35 saves and most likely will get a game off just from the sheer volume of shots that he has faced to start his young career. One spectacular save he made was an in tight save on Seguin who was able to cut right to the slot on a quick forehand move.

 

Final Score and Stats

Score: Devils 4 Stars 5

Shots: Devils 34 Stars 40

Faceoff%: Devils 46% Stars 54%

Hits: Devils 31 Stars 23

Powerplay: Devils 1/4 Stars 1/3

Blocks: Devils 17 Stars 14