Devils Were Due For One Bad Episode After A Long Prosperous Run
In TV parlance, when a hit show falls from grace, it is said to have “jumped the shark.” New characters, new plot lines, etc. turn what was once a prosperous enterprise into a lesser vehicle.
There are plenty of Devils doubters waiting to see if their tale takes a similar route so they can point to Thursday night’s 4-3 loss to visiting Nashville as the moment where New Jersey “jumped the shark.”
The Devils, who in my view played one solid period all night, allowed the Predators to tie the game at 3-3 with just eight seconds remaining and then gifted Ryan Johansen’s game-winner a mere 33 seconds into overtime.
However, the fact is that New Jersey remains the NHL’s No. 1 ranked program with their 19-4-1 record (though Boston holds two games in hand). Games like these are bound to happen in a long season. Just like it was (and probably still is) way too early to anoint the Devils as a true Stanley Cup contender as they were banking points every night, it would also be wrong to look at Thursday’s result as a “gotcha” moment.
Besides, you certainly can’t fault the Devils’ two newest cast members—wing Alexander Holtz and defenseman Kevin Bahl—for this loss.
In a “Hollywood couldn’t write this script” turn of events, the Devils roared back from a 2-0 deficit after the first period by tallying three goals in a 2:38 span in the middle frame with Bahl and Holtz, two players who for over a month did nothing on game nights except watch from press boxes as New Jersey ripped through a franchise-tying 13-game winning streak and then recovered from the 2-1 loss to Toronto by winning their next three in a row, sandwiching goals around a pretty Jesper Bratt power play marker.
Whereas Holtz returned to the lineup in the Devils’ previous contest, a 5-3 victory over the Rangers, when wing Nathan Bastian suffered a shoulder injury, Bahl, who’s only ice time since October 24 was a three-game stint at AHL Utica, only got the bump up into Thursday’s lineup because wing Mile Wood was a late scratch due to an illness. Devils Head Coach Lindy Ruff started the game with an 11/7 configuration, with Bahl the extra d-man, but after the 6-foot 6 Bahl stepped up into the slot and beat sterling Nashville goalie Juuse Saros to get New Jersey on the board 1:57 into the second period, Ruff moved defenseman Brendan Smith up to a left wing. Holtz later followed up Bratt’s PP goal with one of his own, a booming one-timer from the top of the left circle.
Unfortunately, the Devils didn’t press all that much in the third period, with just four shots on goal at five-on-five, though a few were glorious chances on 1-on-1 opportunities that Saros denied. They even wasted an opportunity to salt the game away when Nashville was guilty of having too many men on the ice with 2:46 remaining by being way too tentative.
I thought overall Nashville was the better team on the walls and in the hard areas around the ice for a majority of the game and they were eventually rewarded when they crashed the net front with Saros pulled in the closing seconds to earn the first point. Matt Duchene then outworked Nico Hischier and Yegor Sharangovich to retrieve a 50/50 puck in the Devils’ zone and made a nice feed to a wide open Johansen to end it.
I bring this up only because Wood and Bastian are two of relatively few Devils forwards with the size to match the heavier teams. Obviously, their absences didn’t have the same impact it would have had if one the team’s stars—Jack Hughes, Hischier, or Bratt—was missing. Still, this was a game where I felt their grinding games would have been useful.
To date, New Jersey has been able to shake off every other injury—top-six wing Ondrej Palat (groin surgery) was seamlessly replaced in the 18-skater lineup by Fabian Zetterlund, who may receive erratic ice time but still ranks seventh on the team in five-on-five points per 60 minutes; and goalie Mackenzie Blackwood’s MCL sprain opened the door for Akira Schmid to win his first four decisions in the games where starter Vitek Vanecek, the NHL’s second star of the month of November, needed a night off.
Though Bastian is expected to be out for an extended period, Wood will hopefully return in time for Saturday’s meeting against another team that will test New Jersey’s physical mettle in Philadelphia. It’s another opportunity for the Devils to bank more points, thereby proving that one bad episode doesn’t have to change the public’s outlook.