For the first time in history, the New Jersey Devils will welcome the Las Vegas Golden Knights to the Prudential Center. The Devils are currently in a heated wild card race after losing their last two games to the teams they are competing against. The Golden Knights are all but locks at this point for the playoffs. They are playing for the President’s Trophy at this point in the season. The Devils once again are in desperate need of a win due to the fact they just dropped points to both the Hurricanes and Panthers.

 

Keys to the Game

Limiting speed. The Golden Knights play a very up tempo system, which allows for them to constantly be on the attack. They are very well-coached and structured. This has led to their success this season. The Devils will need to clog the neutral zone and play tight in their own end in order to limit the Vegas offense.

The Devils need some consistent depth scoring. It has been Taylor Hall and sometimes Nico Hischier since the calendar switched to 2018. Michael Grabner hasn’t impressed in his first couple games so they really need him to get going.

 

Players to Watch:

Patrick Maroon came in and had an immediate impact, but the same can’t be said about Michael Grabner. Although he’s had some marvelous chances, Grabner was brought in to score goals and hasn’t done that yet in games where the Devils could have gotten at least a point out of if they had a little extra secondary scoring.

Jon Merrill—The return of New Jersey’s exiled blue liner. Merrill actually looked semi-promising last year before being left unprotected. Not promising in the could be a top-four defenseman, but could play on the bottom-six a bit sense. Welcome back Jon.

 

Prediction

The Devils need a win and Vegas is the road team. It would be nice for the Devils to bounce back and get a win against one of the best teams in the league. Travis Zajac issued a demand that everyone else needs to step up and support Hall. I think the Devils will answer that call.

5-4 Devils win.