Last night the New Jersey Devils lost in a frustrating fashion to the St. Louis Blues, losing their eighth game in a row on home ice. The team peppered Blues goalie Jordan Binnington all night, but he shut the door and stole a win from New Jersey. The Devils fell, 5-3.
Recap
Period One
The Devils dominated in the first period, but they were the ones that found themselves trailing. Pavel Buchnevich found a cutting Jordan Kyrou to connect on a perfect play and put St. Louis up 1-0.
Period Two
The Devils continued their pressure to start out and it eventually resulted in a couple goals from Jack Hughes. The first one was a nice play to get a shot off a tough rebound into an empty net. The second was arguably even nicer as he was able to strip the puck from a Blues’ defender and score off a turnover. However, late in the second frame Ivan Barbashev whipped a perfect wrister by Akira Schmid to tie the game.
Period Three
The Devils continued their domination once again, but this time it didn’t result in a goal. Akira Schmid let in a soft one off Brayden Saad early on. Later in the period, off a questionable high stick call, Schenn layed a perfect pass on the stick of Robert Thomas who put St. Louis up by two.
The Devils would then go on a five-on-three where they would strike back. A point blast from Dougie Hamilton hit off the ankle of Nico Hischier and in. The captain now has goals in five-straight games and 18 total on the season.
The Devils would continue to press with chance-after-chance that Jordan Binnington would deny. Eric Haula had two great chances that he couldn’t bury as he continued his struggles in the goal-scoring department. St. Louis would eventually put the puck in the back of the empty net and seal the deal. New Jersey fell in their eighth-straight game on home ice in another one they probably should have won.
Game Notes
Poor Luck at Home
While the Devils have lost eight straight on home ice, they’ve been getting “goalied” a ton. If you discount the game against the Carolina game in which they scored four goals on 2.38 expected goals (xG) the goalies playing New Jersey have a combined 10.33 goals saved above expected (GSAx) in seven games. That’s an absurd figure. While a -2.43 GSAx for the Devils’ own goalies in those seven games isn’t awful, it isn’t close to helping either.
This poor luck can’t last forever though, although, it’s odd that it’s happening exclusively on home ice. Maybe their five-game road trip coming up isn’t the worst thing for this team.
Jack Hughes All-Star
While the Devils did lose last night, there was some good news. That news was that Devils’ star forward Jack Hughes was selected to his second All-Star appearance. Hughes has undoubtedly deserved it, leading the team with 24 goals and 46 points through just 39 games.
On top of that Hughes has a crazy 61.32 corsi-for percentage (CF%) and possibly even crazier 64.01 xG%. Both metrics are up by about 10% from his already fantastic numbers last year.
What’s Next: Saturday, January 7 at Madison Square Garden versus the New York Rangers.