The New Jersey Devils may indeed be pulling out of the three-month slump that sank their season. Or the Devils’ very modest two-game winning streak might just be what it appears to be on its surface – a couple of wins over two teams that are somehow even worse off than the Devils. And make no mistake, that’s exactly what the Blues and Panthers are.
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How bad of a season has it been for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs? Well, Florida was pretty stoked to get Tomas Nosek back in the lineup for the first time since last summer’s Cup-clincher. The Panthers were also thrilled to have Dmitry Kulikov in the lineup for just the fourth time this season.
Neither was much help against the Devils though.
New Jersey got goals from five different players and Jacob Markstrom stopped 20 of 21 Florida shots Tuesday night as the Devils put a major dent in Florida’s plans to defend its Cup with a 5-1 win over the Panthers at Prudential Center.
New Jersey went back over NHL .500 with the win. At 30-29-2 the Devils have 62 points and are 11 points back of the final wild card spot. Florida’s 63 points have them 10 back of Boston, which beat Pittsburgh Tuesday night, and the Panthers, or at least head coach Paul Maurice, seem to know that the end is near.
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Down 3-1, Maurice was desperate enough he pulled goalie Sergei Bobrovsky with more than four minutes to play leading to empty netters by Dawson Mercer at 16 minutes, 23 seconds of the third and Simon Nemec at 19:20.
For just the third time in their last 10 games, the Devils scored the game’s first goal. Arseny Gritsyuk snapped a shot over Bobrovsky’s blocker at 12:10 of the opening period after Connor Brown sprung Gritsyuk and Jack Hughes on a two-on-one.
The Panthers evened it up on an Anton Lundell goal 2:27 later, but couldn’t make the Devils pay for a double minor taken by Brendan Dillon with less than a minute to play in the period. And when Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad was called for hooking early in the second, it was the Devils who took advantage of the extra ice, getting a Dougie Hamilton goal while the teams skated four aside.
Cody Glass’ 14th goal of the year on a tip-in from just off the right post at 8:13 gave the Devils some breathing room.
Not that they’d need it.
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Markstrom was solid for a second straight game, picking up second star honors in the win, and Mercer and Nemec buried the Panthers with empty netters in the game’s final minutes.
Up Next
No rest for the Devils, who take on the Toronto Maple Leafs at 7 p.m., Wednesday, at Prudential Center in another nationally televised game, this one on Hulu. The Leafs (27-24-10) are just a couple of points ahead of the Devils, who are looking to win three in a row for the first time since the western Canada road trip in late January. Toronto lost to the Flyers on Monday and is just 3-6-1 in its last 10 games.
Your Thoughts
So the Devils are whatever. … It’s hard to read anything into these games from a Devils’ perspective, but wow was that a terrible showing from the Panthers. Soft. Gutless. It was a dead ringer for the kind of non-effort the Devils have been putting out since December when the ugly reality of how many teams they had to leapfrog became clear and they completely tuned out Sheldon Keefe. They’ll get a Leafs team in very similar straits to the Panthers Wednesday night, so they might be looking at three in a row. Then again, it’s a back-to-back, and we all know how good the Devils are on short rest. But if they somehow get a win then there’s a terrible Rangers team up next on Saturday. … Does anyone think these games count and they have a chance at making a run?
