- The Matchup: St. Louis Blues (7-10-6) @ New Jersey Devils (14-7-1)
- The Time: 7:00pm EST
- The Broadcast: MSGSN 2, Devils Hockey Radio
Last Devils Game
On Monday night, the Devils defeated the Detroit Red Wings by a score of 4-3. The game was interesting for many reasons. The first interesting fact about the win is that it was their first regulation win in their last 10 games. Prior to Monday night, they had 1 regulation win, in their previous 13 games. Woof.
The next interesting fact is that this game was a LOT more spicy than one would have assumed it would be before the game started. There were fights, dirty hits, cheap shots, a potential (but thankfully not – Nico) injury, an actual injury (Dadonov – sigh) and even full ice scrums. Most of this was started by the early first period hit on Nico Hischier by JT Compher. After the hit, Compher took a penalty for 2 minutes. Upon being released from the sin bin, Stefan Noesen immediately went after Compher and got him to drop the gloves for a fight. Let’s just say, things escalated after that.
The biggest surprise of the night was that Jacob Markstrom had his first decent game since 11/1 against LA. He did let up 3 goals, but he also did enough to give the Devils a chance to win, which is what you need, every night. His 3.02 GAA on Monday is pretty on pace for his season average. However, he did have a SV% of .914. This was only the 2nd time all season that he had SV% in the .900’s. Credit where credit is due, he played well enough to win on Monday, but I’d also like to see him have more than basically 1 game a month with a SV% above .900.
Last Blues Game
On Monday night, the Blues lost to the Rangers 3-2 at MSG. The loss was the 4th game on their current 5 game road trip, ending tonight in New Jersey. It was also their 5th loss in their last 6 games. Which sounds bad, until you realize earlier in the season, they lost 7 games in a row.
St. Louis took a 1-0 lead late in the first period, heading to the first intermission ahead. The Rangers tied it up midway through the 2nd period before the teams started the 3rd period at 1-1. The Rangers scored 2 goals before the halfway point of the 3rd to go up 3-1. St. Louis added a late goal, with less than 2 minutes left to bring the score to 3-2 and make it interesting but unfortunately, the Rangers won the game.
Joel Hofer started in net on Monday for St. Louis, so I would expect to see Jordan Binnington get the start tonight against the Devils. Binnington has not had the greatest start to this season. He currently has a 3.13 GAA and a .880 SV%. I was going to say that facing Binnington might actually benefit the Devils…then I checked the stats for Hofer…and they are even worse. Hofer has a 3.89 GAA and a .870 SV%.
The point here is, the Devils should NOT be afraid to get as many pucks on net as possible tonight.
Injuries, Roster for Tonight, Yada, Yada, Yada.
Apparently Evgenii Dadonov was injured in Monday’s game, and it’s unlikely he will be playing tonight. At practice on Tuesday, Juho Lammikko took his place on a line with Glass and Brown.
Other than Dadonov, all of the players that played on Monday night were on the ice for practice on Tuesday.
As of this writing, there were no new updates regarding the other remaining injured players; Pesce, Hughes or Kovaceic. There was also no update today on who would be the starting goaltender tonight. On one hand, Sheldon Keefe had high praise for Markstrom after the game on Monday, saying “He’s the reason why you get the two points. He was outstanding. Saved us many times.” Maybe he thinks Markstrom is hot and deserves another start. On the other hand, maybe he wants to get Jake Allen back in the net after his awful performance against the Flyers. I would expect an update at some point today regarding the official starter for the game tonight.
Grimace’s Prediction and 2025-2026 Record Tracker
Grimace’s prediction record has been taking a big hit lately as far as results go. He is only 2 games over .500 at this point, but he’s going to go with a win for his prediction tonight, yet again. He didn’t say this out loud, but I think he’s just going to predict a win for every game going forward, at least until he finally gets it right again.
Grimace’s 2025-2026 Season Prediction record currently stands at 7-5-0.
Your Take
The Devils and Devils Nation should be feeling good about a win on Monday against Detroit. It was a win in which they showed a lot of fight, literally. St. Louis has not been playing well at all this season and hopefully the Devils can build some momentum heading into Thanksgiving with their game tonight. Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below and thanks for reading!
In a shameless bit of non hockey related self promotion (approved by Chris – thanks Chris), I wanted to plug my brand new podcast on here, if any of you are interested in listening. We have a light hearted, fun discussion about any movies, music or video games mostly from the 1980s and 1990s. Please feel free to listen to us on any of the formats below and any feedback is welcome (positive and negative). Also, please follow us and subscribe, even if you think we stink. 🙂