The New Jersey Devils’ four-game winning streak is over, and Colorado made sure there was no wiggle room about it.
Eight days after beating the Avalanche at home, the Devils went into Denver on Wednesday night and came away with a 5-2 loss. Connor Brown gave New Jersey the first goal and the last one, but the middle of the night belonged to the Avs. Brent Burns helped set up two goals, Nathan Mackinnon scored his eighth of the season, and Colorado steadily pulled away.
Jake Allen took the loss for New Jersey even after turning aside 40 of 45 shots. Allen had been honored on Oct. 20 in the Devils’ 4-3 home win over Colorado for reaching 500 career NHL games, but this time the Avalanche kept coming. New Jersey was also buried on the shot clock, finishing with just 22 shots to Colorado’s 45.
The box score had plenty of other rough edges for the Devils. Ten players finished minus-one, while Jonas Siegenthaler chipped in four blocked shots on defense and Amadeus Lombardi added an assist and four shots. The power play never found a rhythm, going 0-for-3.
The defeat drops New Jersey to 8-5-0 and keeps them third in the Metropolitan Division, behind Carolina and Washington. But the record comes with a caveat: six of the Devils’ wins have come against teams in the bottom half of the NHL standings, and they are only 2-5-0 against the top 16, Colorado included.
The offensive profile is still a mixed bag. New Jersey sits third in the league with 424 shots on goal, but that volume hasn’t translated into a top-tier finish in several key categories.
The Devils are outside the top five in five-on-five goals for, shooting percentage and goal differential. Defensively, they rank ninth in goals-against per game at 2.92, yet special teams remain a sore spot: 23rd on the power play at 17.5 percent and 24th on the penalty kill at 72.4 percent.
There’s no long pause to sort it out. The Devils head to Vegas on Friday to face the defending Western Conference champion Golden Knights in the final game of their three-game road trip and the last stop in October. New Jersey is 2-3-0 away from home so far, compared with 6-2-0 at Prudential Center.
The Devils are expected to turn to newly acquired Connor Hellebuyck in goal against Vegas. It would be just his second start of the season and his first since his debut in a 5-1 win at Dallas.
In Other News...
Jack And Luke Hughes Are Running Into A Costly Devils Problem
The Devils have gotten the kind of offense that should make the standings look friendlier than they do, with Jack Hughes still driving play and producing at a strong clip early on. Even so, there is a familiar problem hanging over the group: the attack is generating chances, but too many of those looks are getting swallowed up before they ever reach the net, which makes every offensive push feel a little more expensive than it should be.
Jack and Luke Hughes are both getting caught in that same traffic, and the blocked-shot issue is part of why New Jerseys scoring efficiency has lagged behind its overall production. For a team that expects its top skill players to tilt games, finding cleaner lanes to the goal could be the difference between good shifts and actual payoff, and it is the kind of detail the Devils will have to sort out if they want the offense to start cashing in more often. [Read more 🡒]
Jesper Bratt Debate Just Got More Uncomfortable For Devils Fans
Jesper Bratt has become one of the most important drivers of the Devils attack, but the conversation around him is shifting from admiration to uncertainty. After a career-high season, his goal total has leveled off and his assist production has dipped, which makes for a tricky evaluation of where his true baseline sits as he moves deeper into his prime and remains central to New Jerseys offense.
Analytics models have only added to the unease, suggesting that last years scoring surge may have been more of an outlier than a new norm. For a player whose value is tied so closely to his playmaking, that kind of projection matters, because it raises the possibility that the Devils may need to rethink how they measure his impact if the numbers keep settling in lower than expected. [Read more 🡒]
Devils Trade Drama Just Got Murkier After Insider Walks Back Claim
The Devils defense group keeps finding itself in the middle of roster talk, and the latest twist only adds another layer of confusion. Elliotte Friedman has walked back an earlier report that said Brenden Dillon used his no-trade clause to block a deal last season, clearing up one part of the picture while leaving the rest of it unresolved. What is clear is that Dougie Hamilton did invoke his no-trade protection, which at least gives New Jersey one confirmed piece in a much messier puzzle.
The bigger issue is the one that still does not have a name attached to it. Friedman did not confirm who the other player was, even as Johnny Kovacevic and Jonas Siegenthaler remain possibilities, and that uncertainty matters for a team already working through plenty of defenseman trade chatter under GM Sunny Mehta. With the Devils continuing to adjust the roster, the distinction between rumor, leverage and actual contract protection is becoming harder to separate, and this is one of those stories that could still change depending on which side eventually clarifies it. [Read more 🡒]