It Wasn’t Pretty, But The Plucky Devils Found A Way To Get A Playoff Win
Just find a way.
That’s what good hockey teams do at this time of year. And it’s what the youthful Devils desperately had to learn after dropping the first two contests of their best-of-seven first-round series with the rival Rangers at home, making Saturday’s Game 3 at Madison Square Garden the proverbial must-win situation.
Did New Jersey come out with their “A” game? Hardly. They could barely string three passes together. Their best puck carriers often turned it over—even when they managed to stay on their skates--without much provocation. NaturalStatTrick.com credited New Jersey with a 15-5 advantage in high danger scoring chances—I must have missed most of them, because Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin rarely seemed to be tested. The Devils were getting murdered in the faceoff circle before a late run got them up to a mere 40% win percentage on the night. And they committed five penalties, most of them avoidable ones in the offensive zone. Dropping a man down had been a death sentence in the first two games, with New York connecting on 4-of-10 chances, all on Chris Kreider redirections from the net front.
But this has been a very resilient team all season. Recommitting to their structure and spurred by a brash goalie change by Head Coach Lindy Ruff from Vitek Vanecek to untested rookie Akira Schmid, the Devils eked out a 2-1 victory on Dougie Hamilton’s snipe 11:36 into sudden death overtime. Hamilton’s goal was New Jersey’s first at five-on-five all series, as Jack Hughes produced the tying score on a second period power play.
New Jersey’s win, its first in the playoffs in five years, was the 29th of the comeback variety this season, the most in the league. It may have been their most impressive one—it certainly was the most vital—based on the circumstances and their struggles.
The one area where New Jersey—and New York, for that matter—was stellar was in the defensive zone. Rushes were quelled with excellent positioning and stickwork, the skaters were laying out to block shots before they reached the net, and egregious giveaways were minimal. For the Devils, a huge key was re-working how to defend the Rangers’ mighty power play. Some of those two minutes went by without a New York shot on goal.
And when called upon, Schmid finished the job. Like Shesterkin, he didn’t have to be spectacular, but in the playoffs, every shot has series-altering potential, so mistakes are magnified.
Schmid didn’t make any, surrendering only a Kreider goal off the rush in the second period that opened the scoring. There was a noticeable decrease in available rebounds when compared to the first two games as pucks seemed to stick to Schmid’s glove or body thanks to excellent positioning.
Calling on Schmid wasn’t exactly a no-brainer for Ruff. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Schmid may have put up terrific numbers (a 9-5-2 record with a 2.13 goals against average and a .922 save percentage) during the regular season, but he had gone 0-4-2 versus playoff teams. No one, not even Ruff, could have known how he would respond to this situation in this environment, that he’d be that poised under intense pressure.
I have to admit, things looked bleak after the Kreider goal, which was initiated by a gruesome turnover by Devils wing Ondrej Palat just inside the offensive blue line. Though a slashing penalty could have been called, you’d think that Palat, with all his Stanley Cup experience, would have known better than to hold onto the puck in such a high-risk area. At least he sort of made up for it with a solid screen of Shesterkin as Hughes walked in to the left circle for the tying goal.
On the game-winner, Devils wing Jesper Bratt, who had an up-and-down game with two assists and several mishandles that could have generated additional scoring chances, used his edge work to cut across the slot and create a passing lane, almost again losing the puck in the process, before delivering a dime to Hamilton streaking in from the right. Like Hughes did, Hamilton beat Shesterkin up high to get New Jersey back int the series, with Game 4 on Monday night at MSG.
Make no mistake, the Devils are still in a hole, but thanks to Saturday’s gutsy win, they now know how to find some playoff light when all appears lost.