Jack-in-the-Box Devils Pop In Comeback Win Over Rangers
Something strange seeped into the air inside Prudential Center around 8pm on Tuesday night.
Through 27 minutes, the Rangers tremendous goalie Igor Shesterkin was pitching a shutout against New Jersey. In his first 41 starts this season, Shesterkin allowed as many five goals just twice, both times against high-flying Calgary.
The Devils, who were 0-7-1 in their last eight meetings versus their cross-river rivals heading into Tuesday’s battle, were the NHL’s second-worst performing team (minus-27) in second periods, topping just four teams with 54 goals for in middle frames.
So of course the Rangers’ defense and Shesterkin suddenly sprung a leak during Tuesday’s second period, thereby helping the Devils turn a 2-0 deficit into a 5-2 advantage en route to a shocking 7-4 victory in front of a vocal split crowd in Newark.
If anyone says they saw this coming, they’re either lucky or lying. The Devils were as down as they’ve been all season after three consecutive 6-3 defeats on their Western Canada trip. Monday’s NHL trade deadline didn’t alter the team’s makeup, other than adding one more pedestrian goalie to their stinky stable in Andrew Hammond, who was not in uniform on Tuesday.
The Devils looked like they were out on an evening stroll in the first period, hoping to get out of the arena by playing a soft game with an overabundance of fancy passes. A Dead Team Gliding. They appeared outright intimidated by Shesterkin, almost afraid to shoot on several solid scoring chances.
By the end of period 2, however, they were just throwing pucks to the net with confidence that it would find a hole. The final tally, from wing Yegor Sharangovich, was helped by a partial screen when Rangers defenseman Patrik Nemeth impeded Devils center Nico Hischier’s drive to the net front, but you still don’t expect a simple wrist shot to beat Shesterkin from the top of the circle. Rangers coach Gerard pulled Shesterkin in favor of Alexandar Georgiev to start the third period.
The turnaround was stunning. About the only Devil who wasn’t displaying jitters on both ends in the first period—to the contrary, he had a terrific blend of speed and spunk all night--was wing Tomas Tatar, who was rewarded with two of the markers in the following 20 minutes (defenseman Ryan Graves is currently credited with the first goal, but it sure looked like Tatar pushed the rebound of Graves’ slap shot past Shesterkin).
Tatar, who signed a 2-year, $9 million deal with New Jersey as a free agent in the offseason, is this year’s winner of the Andreas Johnsson Snakebit Award for all the glorious scoring opportunities that went by the wayside, either through overpassing, missing the net, or, when he did put them on goal, they’d typically land right in the middle of the goalie’s chest. The five-time 20-goal scorer is sitting on 12 goals in 60 games despite frequent top-six and power play minutes.
But it’s been that kind of season in New Jersey—consistent only in their inconsistency. They’re the proverbial Jack-in-the-Box team, grinding through games without anything to show for it and then exploding when you least expect it.
The rankings show that the Devils are in the middle of the pack in the league with 3.06 goals per game, but that’s because of six outlier games where they scored seven times each. Eliminate those, and they average 2.56 goals per game, which would place them 30th among the 32 NHL teams.
Stranger still, four of those seven-goal outbursts have come against:
Florida (NHL’s 2nd-best team)
Carolina (3rd)
St. Louis (11th), and
New York (5th)
The Devils (23-35-5, in 27th place) also trounced the 4th-place Penguins, 6-1, last month, which makes one wonder why this team has so much trouble with the Ottawa’s of the league.
The Devils’ second period issues are easy to explain—the long change puts a premium on sound puck management, which has been a struggle throughout Lindy Ruff’s two-season tenure as head coach. When you’re unable to clear the puck out of the defensive zone, you’re stuck defending, with the wear and tear leaving you vulnerable to taking penalties and/or failed coverage assignments. From my eye test, I would say that the Devils haven’t been caught in those high-stress situations as much this season as in the past, but when you get the awful goaltending this team has too often put forth, you seemingly pay for every mistake.
Count on the final 19 games of the Devils season to continue the non-pattern pattern. They’re the youngest team in the league, which makes them inherently inconsistent.
On certain nights, though, they have shown the ability to turn the hockey world upside down.