Devils Take Sloppy Overtime Affair from the Red Wings in 5-4 Win

The New Jersey Devils got off to a dominant start in this one. After not allowing a single shot attempt against for the first five minutes of the first period, it was the new-look third line of Anthony Mantha, Evan Rodrigues, and Stefan Noesen that got the scoring going. Stefan Noesen fought through an uncalled hold at the blueline on an entry, with the puck chipping up on him from Mantha’s stick as he spun around. Noesen knocked it down and slid a pass to Rodrigues in the slot, and Rodrigues wired his first of the season to finally give the Devils a game-opening goal!

While the New Jersey Devils dominated play throughout the period, there was nearly a point where Detroit tied the game with three and a half minutes to play. After Stefan Noesen sent the puck from below the goal line right through Anthony Mantha in front of the net, Detroit counterattacked. Jake Allen, facing a partial breakaway for Detroit, went down to stop the chance and was lucky when the shot attempt from Viktor Arvidsson went wide. But just a couple minutes later, Emmitt Finnie came down the left side and beat Jake Allen clean to the far post from the faceoff dot.

After the Devils missed a few scoring chances with the Hughes line on the ice to start the period, they very predictably fell down 2-1. With the Devils beaten by an alley-oop pass up through the neutral zone, Jonas Siegenthaler could not stop the pass from Finnie to Michael Brandsegg-Nygard for a one-timer goal on the rush.

The Devils were able to tie the game seven minutes into the period when Evan Rodrigues sent the puck up ahead to Dawson Mercer on the rush. Mercer drove wide in the offensive zone and put a pass through a defender’s legs to give Anthony Mantha a wide-open tap-in for his first goal of the season!

Jack Hughes drew a hooking penalty from Keegan Kolesar nine and a half minutes into the period, giving the Devils a power play. In place of Evangelista, Evan Rodrigues played with the first unit. The Devils got a shot early in the power play but could not sustain pressure and had to retrieve the puck from the neutral zone for a re-entry. When they got back in, Jesper Bratt passed from the corner to Nico Hischier, who spun off Justin Faulk and backhanded a redirection at John Gibson. The puck hit Gibson under the mask and trickled down under his five hole, giving the Devils a 3-2 lead!

The lead would not last long. With under five minutes to play in the period, Alex DeBrincat took a point shot that beat a stickless Jake Allen over the blocker…ugh.

After the goal against, Jesper Bratt found Jack Hughes with a long stretch pass for a breakaway. Hughes tried to break John Gibson down with a lot of stickhandling, but he got stuffed at the post as Arseny Gritsyuk came in support to try and jam it through. This line continued to pressure, being pushed back to center ice a couple times. After Dougie Hamilton took a one-timer through no traffic, Jesper Bratt waited at the point for a lane through Gritsyuk’s screen to develop and beat John Gibson with the long shot!

After the Devils took the lead back, Jesper Boqvist appeared to have a goal on the rush — but his backhand at the open net hit the post. Play grew chaotic, and Amadeus Lombardi took a bad hooking call deep in the offensive zone with two minutes to play in the period.

The penalty kill started with Luke Hughes in place of the scratched Brenden Dillon on the first kill unit. It took the Devils a couple of touches to get the puck out on that first wave, but they eventually did so to get a full change towards the end of the first minute. The second kill unit had a tough time out there, saved by Nico Hischier using his glove to slide a loose puck towards Allen when Allen was out of his crease trying to find the puck. It stayed loose, forcing Hischier to come up big again with a sliding shot block, and Allen eventually lost his stick for the second time in the period. With tired Devils on the ice, Alex DeBrincat had a wide open one-timer chance right in front, but Allen got the much-needed stoppage when he made the save and froze the puck with his glove.

Early in the final frame, Timo Meier drove wide on the rush and swept the puck over to Dawson Mercer, whose redirection attempt was shakily covered by John Gibson, who was barely staying in front of the goal line. After this, the Devils grew sloppier with each consecutive shift. And, predictably, Alex DeBrincat was left alone under the faceoff dot as Brett Pesce went sliding to block a pass across — but DeBrincat shot a one-timer right through Jake Allen to tie the game at 4-4 less than six minutes into the period.

Arseny Gritsyuk had a chance to retake the lead for the third time when Jesper Bratt fed him a one-on-one with Gibson a few minutes after the goal. John Gibson got across in time to make the blocker save, and the Devils immediately started to force bad passes in the offensive zone. Instead of pressuring Detroit, they quickly had to fall back to defend once more.

The New Jersey Devils struggled mightily throughout this period, as Detroit outshot them heavily. The Devils were an adventure in their own end, and their passes were consistently a half-foot off target. Over time, what was originally supposed to be a good regulation win turned into the Devils clinging for dear life to get the game to overtime.

The Devils started three-on-three with Cody Glass, Nico Hischier, and Luke Hughes. Cody Glass took the draw, but Nico Hischier caught Lucas Raymond with his elbow while getting the puck. Thankfully, the officials deemed it accidental as Hischier was playing the puck, not calling a penalty on the play. The Devils won the next draw but were called for a late offsides. Nico Hischier came off for Jack Hughes, who lost the next draw after Glass was kicked out of the dot.

From here, it looked like Detroit was poised to dominate overtime — save for a bad pass in the offensive zone while Hughes and Bratt were on the ice. Bratt collected the puck and sent it ahead for Jack, who almost lost the puck with Lucas Raymond on his trail. Jack went for the shot this time, beating John Gibson under the arm.

And the Devils are .500 through six games.

The Game Stats: The NHL.com Game Summary | The NHL.com Event Summary | The NHL.com Play by Play Log | The NHL.com Shot Summary | The Natural Stat Trick Game Stats | The Post Hockey Game Stats

The biggest issue I had with the New Jersey Devils tonight was how much their compete level faltered over the course of the game. Even when leading, and even when tied, the Devils allowed the Red Wings to have a similar third period to the one they put up on Ottawa last night. I get that it was the second half of a back-to-back, but almost all of the team’s offense was coming off of Jack Hughes’s stick down the stretch. He (23:31) and Bratt (20:18) led the way for the Devils, with Gritsyuk (19:27) getting quite a few chances and helping Bratt out on the long-range goal.

But with everyone else ranging between 10:04 and 17:16 of total ice time in a game that went to overtime and hardly featured any special teams, I saw far too much drifting around in all three zones from the forwards. I understand it was disappointing to come out of the first period tied when the shots were 15-3, but getting outshot 23-21 in the final two regulation periods are an easy starting point for dissecting why this game even needed overtime.

I think everyone needs to grapple with how bad Detroit looked in the first period. They barely even looked like an NHL team prior to Emmitt Finnie’s goal with a minute and a half left in that frame. Should Jake Allen have saved that shot? Absolutely. But was Nico Hischier backchecking well enough? Not really. Was Dougie Hamilton drifting too far to the middle, thinking Nico would block the passing lane? You know the answer.

Detroit has some high-level talent, but they are not a good team and they are playing through far more distractions than the Devils have to deal with. They still almost won this in regulation despite falling behind three times. What is this game going to look like against the Colorado Avalanche or Carolina Hurricanes? I don’t think we’re going to get bailed out by Jack Hughes overtime goals.

The Devils are at a point where they are playing like the game is decided entirely in the first 10 minutes. They had an amazing show of team defense early on, and their cycle was impeccable. Where did it go? Who decided to punt the gameplan into next week a few minutes into the second period? How did we go from Noesen leading a new third line to early scoring chances to all three of those guys being on completely different wavelengths from each other down the stretch? Why did the Hischier line have so much trouble with the puck in the second half? Why did even Jack’s line start forcing bad passes in the third? Frustration is understandable, but I would rather have a team that genuinely starts slow and earns a first goal against before playing a strong final 50 minutes than a team that puts all of its effort into the first 10 minutes before breaking down into a slop fest.

But hey, they won. It’s not as good as a regulation win, but it is two points.

Jake Allen partially made up for his poor start throughout the third period, but today is a good example of a game where Remi Poirier needs to dress. Nico Daws, coming off a start last night, was never going to be inserted into the game by Sheldon Keefe, who is already an extremely conservative coach when it comes to mid-game goaltending changes. Had Poirier been on the bench instead of Daws, I would have been shouting from the rooftops for Allen to be pulled after the second game-tying goal by Detroit in the late second period. Instead, I remain confused at why the Devils even have three goalies on the roster. Why have Poirier if he’s not going to be kept ready to relieve shaky starts in back-to-back sets like these?

Without goals by Evan Rodrigues and Anthony Mantha tonight, well, the Devils would have been in a really bad spot! With Stefan Noesen and Dawson Mercer setting their goals up, I was encouraged by their ability to contribute tonight despite their lines largely being ineffective in the third period. Hopefully, from here, the floodgates will open for Mantha while Rodrigues’s game evens out in both ends.

Coming into this game, I was adamant that the Devils needed to try some new lines. They might have only came due to Luke Evangelista’s illness, but the changes resulted in goals. That’s how we got our first icebreaker lead of the season! Hopefully this reminds everyone that small samples don’t mean a coach can tweak a lineup and get new looks out there.

What did you think of tonight’s game? Do you think the locker room bug impeded their effort, or did they give into frustration? What did you think of Allen’s game? What about Jack Hughes’s winner? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and thanks for reading.