The New Jersey Devils got the kind of reminder Monday night that can stop a hot start in its tracks. After rolling past the Vancouver Canucks 4-1 on Saturday, they came home for the final game of their three-game homestand and walked into a 4-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators instead.
New Jersey did plenty to make a game of it late, but the hole was already too deep. The Devils finally scored with five minutes left in the third period, when Arseny Gritsyuk finished a feed from Jack Hughes, but Ottawa had already built enough of a cushion to leave town with the win.
Special teams set the tone early, and not in the Devils’ favor. New Jersey went 0-for-2 on the power play and managed only two shots on goal against Ottawa’s defense.
The penalty kill, though, was busy right away and mostly held its ground. Brenden Dillon went to the box first after a big hit on former Devil Fabian Zetterlund, and Anthony Mantha later picked up a five-minute boarding major.
New Jersey was hit with three more penalties before the night was over.
The Senators finally cashed in on the power play in the second period, with Stephen Halliday scoring to push Ottawa ahead by two. It was another rough night for a Devils penalty kill that has been under pressure lately. The team has now allowed five goals in its last four games, and its 68.8 kill percentage sits near the bottom of the league.
Afterward, Sheldon Keefe pointed to the grind of spending so much time shorthanded. He said, “We want to stay out of the box, but yes, it is disruptive…You saw how we were killing - aggressive, on our toes, competitive, closing fast. That takes a lot out of you.”
Nico Daws got the second start of his season and gave the Devils a steadier look than he had in his first outing, when he allowed six goals against the New York Islanders. He was under fire from the start, with New Jersey trailing 7-4 in shots after the opening 20 minutes, but he helped keep the game scoreless through a penalty-filled first period. Ottawa had just four shots across five power plays during that stretch.
The second period turned quickly, though, when Daws gave up the opening goal only nine seconds in. He settled back in after that and made several strong stops, helping keep the score at 2-0 after two periods. He stayed busy in the third as well, before Tim Stützle redirected a puck from the slot for Ottawa’s fourth goal.
The Devils’ final push made the score look more competitive than it had been for much of the night. They outshot Ottawa 14-3 in the third period and piled up chances, including 27 scoring chances to the Senators’ two in the frame. New Jersey also controlled 90.91% of the high-danger opportunities in the period.
There was even a moment that looked like a breakthrough when Jesper Boqvist appeared to score midway through the third, but Ottawa challenged for goaltender interference and won, wiping the goal off the board.
That left Gritsyuk’s late tally as New Jersey’s only official breakthrough, and it came too late to change the outcome. An empty-net goal soon after put the game away.
The bigger concern for the Devils is that the offense still hasn’t found a consistent groove. The Mantha-Hughes-Bratt line is still sorting itself out, and according to MoneyPuck, the trio has produced one goal. Mantha still has not recorded his first point as a Devil.
Bratt said after the game that the fit will take time. He commented, “[Jack & I], we’re instinct players, and we’re fast, and sometimes we’re maybe in areas where we shouldn’t…We want him to be on our line, and we just got to figure that out. I think that once it clicks, it’s going to be a good line.”
The Devils are back right away, finishing their back-to-back Tuesday night on the road against the Detroit Red Wings. Puck drop is set for 6 PM ET on ESPN, with the night opening the NHL’s fourth annual Frozen Frenzy.
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