Game Summary
The New Jersey Devils beat the Boston Bruins 1-0 last night. Mackenzie Blackwood singlehandedly willed the Devils to a victory in the third period. On the other side, Boston was starting 35-year old goaltender Jaroslav Halak. The Devils have won five of their past nine games and improved to 13-16-4 on the season.
First Period:
The Devils started out pretty good in period number one, outshooting their long time division rival 12 to 9. New Jersey thoroughly outplayed Boston and the Bruins has trouble sustaining zone pressure. This eventually led to an offensive zone faceoff where Jesper Bratt and Kyle Palmieri stripped the puck from Charlie McAvoy. Bratt got it to the point for Ty Smith who ripped a shot off the leg of Palmieri and into the top corner of the net. So, after the first it was 1-0 Devils. That would remain the score for the rest of the game.
Second Period:
New Jersey had a pretty good second period. They had a majority of the zone time and had some great chances. Blackwood had to make 14 saves, but the Devils did a good job keeping Boston to the outside and making a majority of Boston’s shots easy to handle. Then, about half way into the period, there was a scrum in front of the goal. Nick Merkley had an empty net, but hit the post. Jack Hughes and Miles Wood both had good chances in tight on the power play. After two periods, it stayed 1-0, but probably should have been at least 2-0.
Third Period:
The third period was where all the non-goal action happened, mostly in the final three and a half minutes. But first, about half way into the period Janne Kuokkanen high-sticked Charlie McAvoy. It was clearly a high stick and he was bleeding, but they didn’t call it at first and then reviewed it and called it a high stick. Something they didn’t do for the two blatant high sticks against Washington on Thursday. The Devils were able to kill it off though and then when there were about 3 minutes to go Halak denied Miles Wood on a breakaway and then Bratt hit the post.
Blackwood made some great saves in the third, but with about a minute to go, Patrice Bergeron allegedly tied the game. However, the replay showed possible goaltender interference. The Devils challenged and the goal was overturned. After this, with eight seconds left the Bruins entered the zone with speed and got a shot on net that was going in, until Blackwood barely kicked it out. Sharangovich cleared and the Devils won.
Game Notes
- Last night Mackenzie Blackwood finally got his well deserved first shutout of the season. He stopped all 40 shots and they weren’t easy ones either. Blackwood made some great stop on turnovers by his teammates and of course made the amazing game saving stop with eight seconds left.
- At the beginning of the season if you told me that the Devils would be the Bruins’ kryptonite, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. And that would have been acceptable considering that the Boston Bruins usually do well against the Devils. However, the Bruins have generally outplayed the Devils during large chunks of the game. New Jersey has gotten great goaltending though, with their goalies holding a .967 save percentage (SV%) and 1.000 SV% at 5v5.
- Devils’ rookie Ty Smith now leads all rookies this season in assists after getting the primary one on the only goal of the night. Overall, he’s having a pretty darn good rookie season, especially offensively. He definitely needs to improve in his own end, but once he does he’s going to be one of the top defenseman in the NHL.
Next Up: @ Boston on Tuesday, March 30th at 7:00 PM ET