To Keep Winning Ugly, The Devils Are Going To Need Hot Goaltending
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so don’t judge the Devils for being smitten on Monday night when they won ugly.
New Jersey’s second victory in a week over Columbus, one of the teams chasing them in the Metropolitan Division standings, won’t even be proudly displayed on a refrigerator. The Devils (37-26-6) took advantage of two glaring Columbus mistakes and held on for a 2-1 decision that put a little distance between the two clubs with a month to go in the season (ah, but now the Rangers are creeping up).
With superstar center Jack Hughes out for the season with a shoulder injury, the pretty set-ups off the rush have become far less prevalent. In most games, the Devils have instead had to work to get inside position to provide screens/deflections or cash in on rebounds to produce offense. On Monday, they generated very little of anything, but Timo Meier found a way to break a scoreless tie in the second period with a bull rush past the flat-footed Columbus defense and all the way to the net front. 39 seconds later, Blue Jackets goalie Jett Greaves misplayed a puck behind the cage, gifting Devils wing Jesper Bratt an open net.
Fortunately, that was all that was needed to take care of business on this night. Winning ugly, however, requires hot goaltending, and the Devils have gotten it lately from Jake Allen, who stopped 45 of 46 Columbus shots to notch his third straight W.
From Jacob Markstrom, New Jersey’s marquee offseason trade acquisition, not so much.
It wouldn’t be accurate to point to Markstrom’s MCL sprain sustained during a January 22 game versus Boston as the source of his downturn, because his game wasn’t really up to snuff before that. Since December 31, Markstrom has won only three of his 14 starts. Of the 68 goalies who played over 200 minutes in that span, he ranks 65th in goals saved above average, 63rd in save percentage, and 47th in high danger save percentage, per NaturalStatTrick.com. Allen, meanwhile, ranks 5th, 6th, and 17th, respectively, in those categories over the same time frame.
Now, it’s not exactly apples-to-apples, as Markstrom has tended to get the nod for the Devils’ tougher opponents, whereas Allen’s 3-2 victory over Edmonton last Thursday was his first against a team currently in a playoff position since November 23. Nico Daws’ three wins in three starts during Markstrom’s recovery came from beating Utah, Nashville, and Pittsburgh, all of whom are headed for the NHL Draft Lottery. Still, Markstrom’s substandard performance (minus-3.75 GSAA) during Saturday’s 7-3 thrashing in Pittsburgh had to be concerning.
Markstrom continues to give up a disturbing number of goals from distance—the Thomas Harley seeing-eye snipe from the top of the left circle with 4.8 seconds remaining that gave Dallas a 4-3 victory on March 4 was inexcusable, even if the linesmen should have never called the icing that set up the sequence. In the final minutes of both the Penguins and Winnipeg defeats, the Devils in front of him were guilty of lackadaisical efforts, but you still would have hoped that Markstrom could have bailed them out instead of contributing further to his plummeting metrics.
The Devils have the eighth easiest schedule remaining, according to tankathon.com, but they will have a rough three games in four nights stretch at the end of this month at Winnipeg and then a home-and-home versus Minnesota. Many Devils—and Head Coach Sheldon Keefe—have talked about how these last 13 contests have to be treated like they’re playoff games, no matter the opponent.
And no one is more important to winning in the postseason than the goaltender. The Devils surrendered their 2025 first-round pick and young defenseman Kevin Bahl to Calgary for Markstrom to shine in precisely these moments. Allen, for all his good work of late, is backup material (at least it’s no longer possible for him to reach the 40-game threshold this season that would have required New Jersey to also lose its 2025 second-round pick; instead, Montreal’s consideration will remain a third-round pick).
So it’s on the Devils coaching staff and Markstrom to get his game back to where it was earlier in the season. Because ugly offense plus ugly goaltending is not a formula for playoff success.