Match Overview

After stumbling in their previous two matches, the Devils will look to find their offense and hopefully help out an improving Cory Schneider as they take on Edmonton tonight. The Devils offense has been MIA over the last week and scoring droughts to top forwards such as Taylor Hall, Travis Zajac and Mike Cammalleri have only made things worse. This will be Taylor Hall’s first game in Edmonton since being traded for Adam Larsson back in the summer.

Projected Lines

New Jersey

Hall/Zajac/Parenteau
Cammalleri/Henrique/Palmieri
Wood/Zacha/Bennett
Kalinin/Coleman/Lappin

Merrill/Lovejoy
Quincey/Severson
Helgeson/Santini

Schneider

Edmonton 

Maroon/McDavid/Draisaitl
Pouliot/Nugent-Hopkins/Eberle
Lucic/Cagguila/Slepyshev
Hendricks/Letestu/Kassian

Sekera/Benning
Klefbom/Gryba
Russell/Larsson

Talbot

What to Watch 

• After being called up on Tuesday, it appears Blake Coleman will make his NHL debut tonight for the Devils. He’s enjoyed a great rookie season in Albany with 13 goals and 23 points in 34 games, which puts him in 10th in AHL rookie scoring. The Devils haven’t scored a bunch lately and with a lack of secondary scoring hurting them as well, Coleman should be able to contribute some to a weak bottom six.

• Connor McDavid absolutely torched the Devils over the weekend. He was +24/-9 in shot attempts at even-strength and had 8 shots on goal in 23 minutes of ice time. The Devils have been a bit better defensively as of late. That being said, their defense pairs don’t inspire a ton of confidence and had their hands full with McDavid less than a week ago. It’ll probably be more of the same tonight.

• It’ll be an emotional night for Taylor Hall, as he returns to Edmonton and the team that took him with the first overall pick in the 2010 NHL Draft. Hall has made his feelings quite clear about being traded from Edmonton and I’d expect a big game from him tonight. Especially with the added motivation of him only having one goal in his last 13 games.

• It’s been a pretty good start for rookie defenseman, Steven Santini. In five games this season, he has 2 assists and has a 51.6% Corsi For while averaging 14:35 of ice time a night. He also has a relative Corsi of +8.7, which is incredibly high and will surely come back down to Earth. However, it does show that New Jersey is playing better with him on the ice, even if it is in a very small sample size. Look for John Hynes to increase Santini’s minutes if he continues to play this way.

Tonight’s game can be seen on MSG+ at 9 PM.