Just When It Looked Like The Devils Found Their Mojo, Lady Luck Had Other Ideas
The Devils are the proverbial team that if it didn’t have bad luck, it would have no luck at all.
Riding a three-game winning streak heading into Tuesday’s contest in Boston, the organization made a series of announcements regarding personnel issues about five hours prior to game time that all but erased their good vibes.
Let’s start with top-pair defenseman Dougie Hamilton, who took a puck to the face early in New Jersey’s 4-3 overtime victory in Washington on Sunday. The Devils disclosed that he was diagnosed with a broken jaw that required surgery, with no return-to-play timetable given for the player who is tied for sixth among all NHL backliners with seven goals despite missing three other games due to a previous injury.
If that wasn’t distressing enough, the team later said that captain Nico Hischier, who potted the overtime winner to beat the Caps off a magnificent feed from Jack Hughes, was going to be scratched in Boston due to the dreaded “lower-body injury.” While one report, never confirmed, surmised that he may have played through a broken ankle, the MSG announcers provided a vague update during Tuesday’s game that the instrumental center would rejoin the team on Wednesday.
In what capacity, I have no idea, because the team reporter later tweeted that he’ll be considered “day-to-day” depending on his pain tolerance, and, considering the bad news never seems to end with this team, those days have the potential to add up.
Even a medical update of a previously injured player brought gloom, as the team also announced that goalie Jonathan Bernier, signed to a nice free agent contract in the offseason to back up Mackenzie Blackwood, underwent hip surgery and is done for the year, further extending the team’s backup goalie curse. (Devils Again Run Into Blackwood Backup Curse (substack.com))
Blackwood didn’t exactly use the report to take his game to the next level on Tuesday, as he let in three of the weirdest, softest goals you’ll ever witness at an NHL game to help the heavy Bruins to a 5-3 win. Only the last two markers, where Boston star David Pasternak broke a 3-3 tie by taking advantage of a soft play by Devils defenseman Ty Smith at the net front and the last-minute ricochet from the stick of Brandon Carlo off Devils center Dawson Mercer’s skate couldn’t be pinned on Blackwood.
The contest was a Sisyphean struggle all night, with the Devils battling back from a goal deficit three times, though the longest stretch where the game was tied was 6:35 during the third period, between Devils defenseman Damon Severson’s breakaway coming out of the penalty box and Pasternak’s game-winner with 5:49 remaining.
Making the comeback task harder was how severely shorthanded the Devils were because (oh, did I forget to mention?) the NHL’s health and safety protocols struck this team again on Tuesday, this time sending wings Pavel Zacha (tied for the team lead with nine goals) and Yegor Sharangovich (goals in his last three games) into quarantines.
New Jersey, like a bunch of teams, has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic surge, exposing their lack of quality depth. Though wing Tomas Tatar exited the protocols on Tuesday, this new batch forced the Devils to roll with a fourth line of Jesper Boqvist, Mason Geertsen, and Alexander Holtz, the team’s No. 7 overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft who just doesn’t look ready for The Show. That grouping got crushed, outshot, 8-1, per NaturalStatTrick.com, and were on the ice for Boston’s opening goal when Holtz coughed up the puck at the Bruins’ blue line to ignite a counter.
Of course, Boston wing Curtis Lazar’s relatively weak shot from the right wing boards had to be stopped, but Blackwood was… who knows what he was thinking? (For the record, he acknowledged afterwards he “had to be sharper” and “overplayed” that puck, though no one at the press conference dared to follow up with a more direct question).
Blackwood’s gaffes wasted a quality effort that could have built on the prior solid performances. Though the playoffs still appear far out of reach, the Devils (13-16-5) at some point need to turn a corner in their forever rebuild.
It was supposed to be this season, after the team signed Hamilton to a 7-year, $63 million free agent contract and expected major leaps in the play of their one-two punch up the middle in Hughes and Hischier. Again, injuries and COVID-19 infections have killed the buzz, especially during a 28-game stretch when Hughes was out with a dislocated shoulder and then struggled (5 points in 11 games) upon his return to action.
Yet the hits keep on coming. Other than Tatar’s reemergence, the only pieces of good fortune on Tuesday came when Mercer and wing Andreas Johnsson each were sent to the locker room after getting struck in the head by a puck but were able to return in short order.
Hey, you take what you can get with a team that can’t seem to have nice things without breaking them.