Saturday night, the New Jersey Devils defeated the Montreal Canadiens in overtime, 4-3, to improve to 28-17-6 on the season. An overtime winner from Jack Hughes gave the Devils their second win in a row.
Recap
Period One
The Devils started out this game on the back foot as the Canadiens pressed early. However, they found their form late in the period with two individual efforts from Jesper Bratt. First, a net-front drive by Bratt to set up Nico Hischier opened the scoring and under two minutes later another awesome play by Bratt beat rookie netminder Jakub Dobes five-hole. The Devils would lead 2-0 after one period of play.
Period Two
The Devils started this period hot from the end of the first, but despite that they surrendered the first goal. After failing to clear the zone a couple of times, Cole Caufield set up Nick Suzuki for his 15th of the season. The Devils would continue to press after this, however, and eventually a terrific shift from Tomas Tatar resulted in another good-looking goal. Tatar followed up his initial redirect attempt and stuffed the puck home to put New Jersey back up by two.
Late in the period, however, a missed cross-check to the hip of Hischier caused a turnover which led to a Cole Caufield snipe. A late push from Montreal would come to no avail, as the Devils led 3-2 after two.
Period Three
The third period was very back and forth. After an icing call had the fourth line stuck out on the ice, Montreal took advantage. A faceoff win went right to Alex Carrier who evened the game at three. The Devils would pepper Dobes with chance after chance that he snuffed out every time. Allen made a few nice saves of his own in the Devils’ end, but nothing would go. The two teams would head to overtime deadlocked at three.
Overtime
The Devils did a good job defending in overtime, not allowing any great chances, and eventually Montreal made a crucial mistake. A pass was just behind Mike Matheson and Timo Meier jumped it and fed Jack Hughes who ripped the puck near side to win it in overtime. The Devils took this one in Montreal 4-3.
Game Notes
Jack and Nico Banged Up
After taking a cross-check to the face and hip in quick succession, Nico Hischier came out for only one shift in the third period before leaving for the locker room. Head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game that he expects Hischier to be day-to-day. Using that information there’s a very good chance that he misses the team’s next game in Philadelphia.
In the same postgame presser, Keefe said that Jack isn’t playing at 100% either. Although, clearly it didn’t matter on his overtime winner. Hughes left Wednesday’s game against the Bruins briefly to get stitches on his hand. He missed practice on Friday with that same hand being swollen and didn’t take faceoffs in Saturday night’s win. This included even once in overtime when he was on the ice with Stefan Noesen and his brother, Luke. Noesen got kicked out of the faceoff dot and Luke, the defenseman, came in to take it over Jack.
With both Jack and Nico being banged up, and Markstrom spraining his knee last Wednesday, the two-week break for the 4 Nation’s Face-Off can’t come fast enough.
Allen Holding Fort
As previously mentioned, Jacob Markstrom is expected to miss some time with a sprained MCL. This means Jake Allen should take a bulk of the starts until the Swedish netminder’s return. In his first start post-Markstrom injury, how did he do?
Well, on the outside. a .906 save percentage isn’t earth-shattering, but let’s dive a little deeper. He allowed three goals on 3.71 expected goals against (xGA) which equates to a 0.71 goals saved above expected (GSAx). That’s solid, but, what’s even better is that Allen was 10-for-10 in stopping high-danger chances according to Natural Stat Trick. In comparison, Dobes was only six-for-eight in that category. If Allen allows even just one or two of those like Dobes, we’re talking about a completely different game.
What’s Next?
The Devils continue their road trip with a trek to Philadelphia to take on the Flyers at 7:00 pm ET on Monday.