Better Devils Still Not Good Enough In Game 2
When the Devils last participated in the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2023, they dropped their first two games to the hated Rangers at home by identical 5-1 scores.
As daunting a challenge as it was to get back in that best-of-seven Eastern Conference Quarterfinals series, I thought then that it was doable, pending a few adjustments. New Jersey switched goalies from Vitek Vanecek to Akira Schmid and paid attention to forward Chris Kreider when he stood at the net front on the Rangers power play.
Voila, the Devils won four of the next five games to take their first postseason series since 2012.
Two years later, the Devils find themselves in a similar situation, down 2-0 to Carolina after Tuesday night’s 3-1 defeat with the next two games at Prudential Center starting on Friday.
Yet it’s apples and oranges. Different year, different opponent, different Devils team.
There’s not much more Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe can do with his hurting club to alter the momentum. Pull goalie Jacob Markstrom for backup Jake Allen? Are you kidding? Markstrom was perhaps more brilliant on Tuesday than when he stopped 41 of 44 shots in the 4-1 loss in Sunday’s Game 1. Through two games, Markstrom has registered a .930 save percentage and a 2.01 goals saved above average, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
With All-Star center Jack Hughes out for the season and the team down three defensemen (Jonas Siegenthaler, Luke Hughes, and Brenden Dillon), Keefe has had no choice but to plug in players who probably aren’t ready for this level of competition. I mean, he could try rookie Seamus Casey over either Simon Nemec or Dennis Cholowski to generate more puck movement from the sixth defenseman, but that would almost certainly come at the expense of even more scary shifts that plagued New Jersey’s third pair on Tuesday, though the Nemec/Cholowski pair did not surrender a goal against (thanks to a post off the stick of wide open Carolina forward William Carrier).
The Devils put every ounce of effort into Tuesday’s contest, especially during the opening eight minutes or so when they took a 1-0 lead courtesy of Jesper Bratt’s drive to the net to deposit a rebound of an Erik Haula shot. Then New Jersey took a few careless stick penalties and allowed the Hurricanes to find their game after a shaky start.
Once again, New Jersey got rolled over in the middle frame, allowing the game-tying goal after defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic’s poorly executed zone exit pass went the distance for an icing. The Canes then took advantage of a tired Devils five-man unit to press the net, with defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere finishing off the sequence. About three minutes later, the Devils got caught flat-footed after losing an offensive zone faceoff while on a power play and Jodan Martinook, who destroyed New Jersey with three goals and seven assists during Carolia’s five-game victory in the 2023 Conference Semifinals, took off down the left wing and roofed a wicked shot over Markstrom for the lead.
(Note: Including the Seth Jarvis empty-netter to seal Game 2, Carolina now has four goals this series that were initiated by faceoff wins, a less-obvious factor I noted in Part II of my series preview—link: Devils Playoff Preview Part II: The Less Obvious Keys)
If only the Devils could find that depth scoring from a bottom six guy like Martinook. They had it in 2023—though Jack Hughes netted a pair of goals over the final five games to help knock off the Rangers, New Jersey also got three from Haula, two from Ondrej Palat and Dawson Mercer, and single tallies from the unlikely likes of Tomas Tatar, Michael McLeod, and Curtis Lazar. Oh, and a big one from stay-at-home defenseman Siegenthaler.
In this series, there’s one by Bratt and one by captain Nico Hischier. That’s it. And it’s not unexpected given how little production the bottom six has contributed all season. Thats why having home ice for the next two games might free the Devils’ top guns from Carolina’s best stiflers like Jordan Staal and the defense pair of Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns for some shifts, but it likely won’t be enough to push New Jersey over the top if that’s where all the offense is created. You could probably give Devils center Justin Dowling the puck while he’s alone in front of Carolina goalie Frederik Andersen 10 times and he might score one. He didn’t when he had such a chance in Tuesday’s second period.
After the game, Keefe went to his standard ‘I liked a lot about our game”, which is fine to an extent. You can laud the effort put forth by guys like defenseman Brett Pesce, who might have saved three goals with heads-up plays in the blue paint while playing most of his 23:14 on his off (left) side due to all the injuries.
But they still lost, and I don’t know what the Devils can do to turn the series around with what they have. In the end, which was more demoralizing: The utter Game 1 thrashing, or the competitive Game 2 contest where Carolina still put up a 14-7 advantage in five-on-five high danger chances, per NST, and won the special teams battle?
As for coming back to win this series, though Carolina is known to be home warriors and road daisies, it would be a grand achievement if the Devils can just take one of the next two games.