Saturday afternoon, the New Jersey Devils look to stay hot by defeating the Chicago Blackhawks. The Devils won their most recent outing on Thursday, taking down the Los Angeles Kings at home and snapping their two game winless streak in the process.
The Devils are currently 19-10-3, which currently has them second in the Metropolitan division. The Blackhawks hold a record of 9-18-2, which has them last in the Central Division.
Match Overview
The Blackhawks are currently dealing with a lot of injuries. Both their goalies and two top-four defenseman are on injured reserve at the moment. That currently leaves them with a goaltending tandem of Arvid Soderblom and Drew Commesso. Soderblom was not good last year, posting an .880 save percentage (SV%) in just 32 games, however this season has been a bit of a different story for the Swedish netminder. In 10 games, Soderblom has a .908 SV% and a positive (if only just barely) goals saved above expected (GSAx) of 0.32 according to Evolving Hockey.
On the Devils side of things, Curtis Lazar returned to practice yesterday for the first time in over a month. While he didn’t take line rushes with the team it is clearly a positive sign that his return could be inching near.
Lines and Pairings
Devils
Forwards
Palat-Hughes-Bratt
Meier-Hischier-Mercer
Cotter-Haula-Noesen
MacDermid-Dowling-Legare
Defense
Dillon-Hamilton
Hughes-Pesce
Siegenthaler-Kovacevic
Goalies
Markstrom
Poulter
Blackhawks
Forwards
Kurashev-Bedard-Donato
Hall-Nazar-Bertuzzi
Foligno-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Maroon-Reichel-Teravainen
Defense
Vlasic-Kaiser
Allen-Murphy
Korchinski-Brodie
Goalies
Soderblom
Commesso
Keys to the Game
Bedard’s Lack of Help
Last offseason, the Blackhawks added a bunch of offensive pieces to help out their star center and number one draft pick Connor Bedard. Those pieces include Tyler Bertuzzi, Teuvo Teravainen, and Ilya Mikheyev, on top of getting Taylor Hall back from injury. Thus far, those additions have not worked out for Chicago. So far this season, in 29 games, Teravainen and Bertuzzi only have 13 points each. Hall only has 13 in 28, and Mikheyev, who has been a solid depth scorer for a long time in the NHL, has only an abysmal six points in 27 games.
All of this has led to Bedard continuing to have to carry the weight offensively, and while he’s still doing a decent job with 24 points in 29 games, only six goals is definitely disappointing at this point in the season.
Devils Defensive Dominance
Part of what has made the Devils such a good team this year is their defensive dominance. On the year, the Devils rank second in expected goals against per 60 minutes (xGA/60) at a terrific mark of 2.08. The only team above them is the team they last beat, the Kings.
Over the last three games the Devils have held their opponents to 19, 24, 17, and 14 shots, respectively. That’s an average of just 18.5 shots per game which is an insanely low mark. A real sign that the entire team is buying into what Keefe is trying to implement.
Where to Watch
This afternoon’s game at the Prudential Center is set for a 1:00 pm ET puck drop. The game can be seen on MSG SportsNet.