This will be the first time New Jersey and Detroit face each other this season. -The Saratogian
Matchup Overview
It’s the day after Halloween, and the New Jersey Devils (5-3-1) are looking to rebound from Tuesday night’s embarrassing loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning, in a nighttime matchup against the Detroit Red Wings. It was a loss that most, if not all, Devils fans most likely want to forget, and a strong performance in Hockey Town would do just the trick to redeem themselves.
In Tuesdays matchup against the Lightning, the Devils had to face arguably the most talented team in the Eastern Conference. Tonight, the Devils find themselves on the ice against one of the worse teams in the league, as the Red Wings pose a record of 3-7-2 for eight points throughout 12 games.
Keys to Victory
Confidence and Recovery: Tuesday’s loss was bad—really bad. Hopefully after the Devils worse loss (by goals allowed) in four years, the team regrouped and will come out fighting with the confidence they had through the first few games of the season.
Limiting Shots: In the categories of power play, penalty kill and shots on goal, the Devils and Red Wings are evenly matched. In special teams, both are ranked in the league’s top ten. In shots per game, they both rank in the bottom third. The only stat that shows a significant disadvantage for the Devils is shots allowed, where Detroit ranks fifth in the league. The Devils are 19th.
Line Combinations
New Jersey
Hall-Hischier-Palmieir
Johannson_Zajac-Wood
Coleman-Zacha-Dea
Boyle-Rooney-Anderson
Mueller-Vantanen
Greene-Severson
Butcher-Lovejoy/Yakovlev
Schneider(starter), Kinkaid
Detroit
Helm-Larkin-Mantha
Nyquist-de la Rose-Rasmussen
Abdelkader-Glendening-Bertuzzi
TBD-Megan-Frk
Cholowski-Green
Ericson-Daley
Kronwall-Jensen
Witkowski
Howard(start), Bernier
Players to Watch
Cory Schneider will make his first start of the season tonight. -Shutterstock
Corey Schneider: A relief performance after Kinkaid letting in seven goals on Tuesday wasn’t the way anyone expected Cory Schneider to start his 2018-2019 season. Just because nothing seemed to go right on Tuesday night, Cory let up a goal on the first shot he faced. That eighth goal was the final nail in the coffin of a sure loss at that point, so let’s hope that 10-minute stint allowed Cory to shake off some of the rust for a better performance tonight. Whether Schneider gets a win or not, all eyes will be on him and how he recovered from a surgery at the tail end of two seasons of decline performance.
Joey Anderson: An AHL call-up on the road trip taking the place of Noesen. The Devils have had a number of unimpressive AHL call ups and with the relatively late lineup change of replacing Noesen with the one-time Captain America on game day, let’s see if Anderson makes enough of an impression to leave his Binghamton jersey behind for a little longer.
Dylan Larkin: One of the only bright spots in the season for Detroit is the emergence of 2014 first round pic Dylan Larkin. Larkin so far is a point-per-game player throughout the season with 12 points split evenly between goals and assists. Prior to a three-game performance over Columbus, Larkin was off the score sheet for two games. This is a pattern Detroit’s assist leader, Gustav Nyquist, also follows.
Prediction:
While it may be easy to assume a win against one of the NHL’s worst teams, these type of games never come easy for the Devils. Add in the fact Detroit has only scored less than three goals a handful of times so far this season, A Devils win in the realm of 4-3 seems accurate.
Where to Watch:
Puck drops at 8:30 on MSG+ and Fox Sports-Detroit. Devils Army Blog will also be providing live play-by-play, updates and analysis on our social media platforms.