Introduction
The New Jersey Devils lost 3-2 to the more energetic Los Angeles Kings last night. The Devils, coming off an exciting win against the Carolina Hurricanes, seemed gassed as they fell for the second time this season to the Kings.
Recap
First Period
As previously brought up in the introduction, the Devils were gassed, however the wasn’t the case to start out with. Jesper Bratt scored early on off a beautiful pass from Severson to spring him on a breakaway. Alex Iafallo quickly answered back with a goal of his own to tie the game for LA. However, it was the Devils who left the period with the lead as Jesper Bratt capitalized on a beautiful Jack Hughes pass to give New Jersey the 2-1 lead after the first.
Second Period
Both teams played a fairly sound second period. However, it was the Kings who struck off a Jack Hughes’ turnover. Viktor Arvidsson ripped a shot far side on a leaning Jon Gillies to make it a tie game. That was the score heading into the third.
Third Period
Heading into the third you could tell the Devils probably didn’t have it in them to pull out a win. They killed off an early penalty to keep it tied. However, with about eight and a half to go, Carl Grundstrom fired a puck far side to give LA their first lead of the night. The Devils fought hard, but a too many men call with 20-seconds left was the end of it. The New Jersey Devils were unable to carry over the momentum from the win on Saturday and fell 3-2.
Notes
- Jack Hughes may have had a nasty assist tonight, but I wouldn’t call it a good game for the 20-year old all star. He directly led to at least two of the Kings’ goals, maybe all three. He also missed an open net in the second period. He still played okay, coming out of the game with a 60.71 corsi-for percentage (CF%) and 63.29 expected goals percentage (xG%) at five-on-five. So, overall, not that bad of a game, but you cannot excuse the mistakes that led to the Kings’ goals.
- Jon Gillies had another solid outing. While he did let up 0.42 more goals than expected, he made plenty of key saves for New Jersey to keep them in the game and ended the outing with a .919 save percentage.
Next Up: Tuesday night at the Prudential Center, versus the Dallas Stars.
All statistics are from Natural Stat Trick.