First Period
The New Jersey Devils got off to a strong start against the Colorado Avalanche, who were on the second half of a back-to-back. After the first five minutes, both teams started to sit back from each other, trying to see who would make a mistake first. It was almost the Devils when Jonas Siegenthaler had to go to his knees to sweep the puck away from the front of the net, as he almost turned it over but iced it instead. Later, Connor Brown perfectly threaded a two-on-one pass to Paul Cotter, who was denied at the doorstep by rookie goaltender Trent Miner. Jake Allen later answered with a big glove save of his own on Nathan MacKinnon after the referees missed a Martin Necas high stick on Brett Pesce.
The Devils made the Avalanche pay for the missed penalty. Arseny Gritsyuk made a great play on the wall to seal Lehkonen out of the play on the zone entry, and Timo Meier made some slick moves to the puck, backhanding the puck behind him back to Gritsyuk for a go-ahead goal! The Devils took a 1-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the game.
The period would not even reach the halfway point before Jack Hughes made it a 2-0 game on his signature seven-hole shot! He beat Trent Miner under the glove arm.
After the second goal, Gritsyuk put another tough shot on Miner as Lehkonen tried to ride him into the boards. Timo Meier got the puck back for the Devils and was high sticked by Josh Manson, and Gritsyuk threw a hard hit from behind at Manson, just light enough to avoid a boarding penalty. Later, the Avalanche would pull back to within one goal when Jake Allen failed to freeze a puck off a far shot from Devon Toews, and Valeri Nichushkin took advantage of the rebounding puck to whip the puck at the twine. Still 2-1, Devils, with a bit over seven minutes left in the period.
With Brett Pesce missing time late in the period, a shot bounced off Nathan MacKinnon and then off of Martin Necas at the post, leaving the puck in the crease for MacKinnon to bury. The Avalanche had tied the game with under three minutes to play.
Second Period
Brett Pesce did not return for the beginning of the second period. Simon Nemec turned a puck over right to Jack Drury in the defensive zone, but Luke Hughes saved the day with a strip. Still, the Devils could not clear the zone, and Jake Allen had to make a big glove save on Drury later in the shift. The Devils were clearly getting frustrated, and Brenden Dillon rocked Sam Malinski in the neutral zone, leading to a center-ice meet-up with play blown dead.
Luke Hughes made a huge mistake trying to skate the puck out of the defensive zone, leading to an extended offensive zone shift for the Avalanche after Gabriel Landeskog stripped him of the puck. Dawson Mercer and others ended up staying on the ice for over two minutes, but Allen made a big save on Landeskog before the Devils survived the quick cycle of the Avalanche with the puck eventually deflecting out of play.
The Devils caught a break when Brock Nelson tripped up Arseny Gritsyuk from behind. With the officials missing about three Avalanche penalties in the first period, that was one that was impossible to miss. The Devils tookt he puck from their own end after losing the faceoff draw, and they lost the puck again behind the Colorado net after retaking the zone. Of course, the officials would finally catch their first high stick of the game with Timo Meier going to the box before the first minute of the power play expired, as Meier’s stick was tied up high and Makar skated into his stick.
The Avalanche had about a minute of power play time with the period approaching its halfway point. The Avalanche did not get a shot on their chance, though MacKinnon had a hard shot deflect wide of goal. As the game crossed halfway, the Devils started settling back down, and they finally got another break.
Check that — Connor Brown caught a breakaway off an outstanding feed from Simon Nemec, and he is a fast man. Not only is Connor Brown fast, he is hot, and he beat Trent Miner over the glove to take a 3-2 lead with his fifth goal of the season! The Avalanche fought back immediately afterwards, and Jake Allen was almost taken out after Dillon deflected a two-on-one pass into the air. Allen went to glove it but was skated directly into, and the officials let play go on. In a hectic sequence, the puck was kept out.
Sheldon Keefe was then barking at the officials for a Martin Necas embellishment special, with Luke Hughes sending him to the ice as they pursued a puck in the corner, leading to an “interference” call. Jake Allen stood his ground on this full penalty kill as the Devils got more clears out of the zone, and the Devils kept their lead into and through the final four minutes of the period.
Third Period
The Devils continued to play better to begin the third period, but the Avalanche still controlled most of the offensive zone ice time in the first five minutes. Colorado was certainly hunting for deflections from distance, but most of their shots were missing the net. The Devils then had a few minutes where they tried to create on offense, but the Avalanche gave them very little room to work with. Still, the Devils pulled to even on the shot count by the final 10 minutes of the game, as Jack Hughes snuck a shot through traffic and almost got his own rebound, banking it off the side of the net.
In the following minutes, the Avalanche got back to the game they were playing in the second period. Thanks to Brenden Dillon, who sticked down a centering feed from the wall with the Devils under pressure, the Devils kept their lead into the final seven minutes. But one more breakdown killed the Devils, as Siegenthaler did not block a similar lane from Ross Colton to Brock Nelson. Nelson tied the game with six minutes to play as Siegenthaler was caught reaching. The Avalanche continued to pressure until the final buzzer, but the game went to overtime.
Overtime
Sheldon Keefe turned to Hischier, Meier, and Luke Hughes to start overtime. Hischier won the draw, and the Devils controlled possession through the first change. Hamilton took a shot on a two-on-one rather than making the pass, but the official let play continue despite Miner’s glove save. The Avalanche took possession, and Bratt stopped Nathan MacKinnon with a clean strip. Jack Hughes took the puck to the net, shimmying and shaking into a backhand that went wide of goal.
The Avalanche had a chance to turn up the ice, but Simon Nemec disrupted the play on the wall. He got the puck back and snapped a quick pass back to Hughes, who ripped a shot off of Miner’s shoulder and in! The Devils won the game in overtime!
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
Down Pesce
You might think that the New Jersey Devils were lucky to win this game. It is definitely true that, on the majority of nights, the Colorado Avalanche would have won this game. But do we really need to break out a “deserve to win-o-meter”?
In total, the Devils had 44.19 percent of the expected goals today (including 48.1% of all even strength expected goals), and they got screwed out of 6-8 minutes of power play time, only playing 0:58 with the man advantage to 2:58 for the Avalanche. At least two of those penalty minutes should have come from the brutal high stick of Brett Pesce by Martin Necas, who embellished his way to one power play and tried to make another call by himself in overtime. So, forgive me if I feel this loss is a bit karmic for the Colorado Avalanche.
To be fair to Necas, though, there was one other possible play that could have injured Pesce. But looking at the replay, I don’t think it was. With 5:21 left in the first period, Pesce blocked a shot that seemed to strike somewhere between his upper left thigh and a spot that no hockey player wants to block a shot with. But Pesce just made one grab at the area and looked no worse for wear, skating wise, staying on the ice through the full shift into the offensive zone before changing off for Nemec. His grimacing after the missed high stick? Much more noticeable. Pesce actually went to both knees after that high stick. This is the blocked shot, by comparison:
I don’t know. Does that look like an “upper-body injury”? I guess we will find out the truth, eventually.
Still, the Devils had to play this game largely without their best defensive right-handed defenseman. And Sheldon Keefe made a big mistake by responding to this injury by shifting the primary pairs to Siegenthaler-Hamilton and Hughes-Nemec with Dillon floating shifts during the second period. During that period, the Devils dropped from a 50.00 to a 37.5 CF% at five-on-five, outshot nine to three in total during the second. By comparison, Hughes and Nemec played approximately zero seconds together in the third period, and the Devils outshot the Avalanche nine to five in that frame.
Credit to Keefe for seeing a problem and making an adjustment. Yes, some may say Nemec was at fault for that game-tying goal, but I think Siegenthaler got played a little too hard and gave up his netfront position. Brenden Dillon played the best defensive game of anyone by not getting baited into leaving that netfront. Dillon shut down the Nelson-Nichushkin line, which pretty much destroyed every pairing that didn’t include Dillon. Nelson had an 10.59 xGF% and a goal against when facing Dillon compared to a 91.64 xGF% and a goal for when Dillon was not on the ice.
The Grits and Brown Element
While many Devils fans complained that Tom Fitzgerald did not do enough about the bottom six during the offseason, I was optimistic that Connor Brown’s speed might be a big help to making the Devils harder to play against. But I was just hoping that he might get back to being a 40-50 point player, now two full seasons removed from his ACL tear recovery. But man, Connor Brown fits perfectly with the New Jersey Devils. He is one of the fastest skaters on a team that features some pretty good skaters, and he already has more goals this season than the number he hit in his first post-injury season. In fact, this is the fastest Brown, a two-time 20-goal scorer, has ever hit five goals in his career.
Arseny Gritsyuk also took massive heat off of Timo Meier and Nico Hischier. The Avalanche had a plan to smother Hischier, who had zero shots on goal on just one attempt for the Devils. Timo Meier had six shot attempts, but only one hit the net. That left a lot of ice for Arseny Gritsyuk, who had a game-leading 10 shot attempts and also game-leading 5 shots on goal. He also tied Brenden Dillon for a team-leading three hits thrown, including a rough hit on Josh Manson in response to Manson going at Meier.
You can be disappointed with Hischier’s game today, but this is why Gritsyuk can perform on that line. Teams can try to smother Hischier and Meier, but Gritsyuk is very talented, very fast, and has a quick release into a hard shot. With Mercer down to the third line due to Cody Glass’s injury, Gritsyuk preserves the speed and scoring potential of the top six while Brown continues to turn back the clock on the third line. It seems like these two make the Devils substantially different from last year’s team, who would not have had the depth to hang with Colorado in a game like this.
Jack and Nemo
As you might have heard, this was Simon Nemec’s first three-point game in his NHL career (all being primary assists), as he now has seven points in nine games played. Playing just over 15 minutes a night, Nemec has not disappointed with an offensive impact in his minutes. Could he simplify his game in the defensive zone a bit, staying more in position and not chasing so much? Absolutely. But I would be much more concerned if he got off to a start like last season, when he had four points in 27 games. Without him, the Devils would not have won today. You have to score to win.
As for Jack Hughes, what is there to say? He now has eight goals and 12 points through nine games with his third multi-goal game of the season, as Brent Burns and Josh Manson had no answer for him. He even won the majority of his draws in the dot this afternoon. As long as he keeps up this sort of scoring, the Devils are going to be a very, very tough team to beat, as he reminds everyone that his 2022-23 performance was just a glimpse of his capability.
Your Thoughts
What did you think of today’s game? Did you watch it? What did you think about Pesce’s ordeal? What about Jack’s game-winner? Did you think they would keep the winning streak going? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.