The New Jersey Devils looked like the squad that broke the franchise point record the previous season and showed promise in the postseason—at least for one game. They will not make it back to the playoffs if they continue in this manner over the last 12 games of the regular season.
In one of the team’s better performances this disappointing season, New Jersey stunned hot-shot Winnipeg 4-1 on Thursday night behind goals from brother Luke Hughes who had a career-high three assists and two of the team’s three power-play goals from Jack Hughes.
After New Jersey won its second straight, interim coach Travis Green of the Devils observed, We played good, to put it mildly.
Winnipeg is undoubtedly among the top teams in the league. I felt like our players just spent sixty minutes playing a very fast, methodical, and structured game.
That hasn’t occurred very often. Throughout the season, New Jersey has not won more than three straight games.
With time running out, Jack Hughes, who now has 23 goals to his name and has kept New Jersey six points off of the final wild-card slot in the Eastern Conference, stated, That was probably one of our better games, we played really well.
With two assists, Nico Hischier scored the game-winning goal during a power play. For New Jersey, the victory came after three out of four starts thanks to an empty-net goal and two assists from Timo Meier and 18 stops from Jake Allen.
In addition, the Jets’ three-game winning streak was snapped, and they suffered their fourth loss in 11 games when the Devils turned down all four of their power-play opportunities.
Hischier declared, Special teams won that game tonight for sure. Penalty kill was quite effective; there was no fear.
We kept them on the outside and didn’t panic, even though I believe they got a lot of O-zone time during the power play.
The Jets’ incredible goal came from Nikolaj Ehlers, and Laurent Brossoit’s five-game winning streak was ended despite his 37 saves.
At 5:59 of the third period, Hischier broke a 1-1 tie by deflecting a Meier shot past Brossoit in the final seconds of Dylan DeMelo’s penalty for tripping Luke Hughes. At 11:52, Jack Hughes’ high-slot shot put the score at 3-1, and Meier’s empty-net goal sealed the victory.
At 16:47, Ehlers scored his 21st goal of the season with a fantastic individual effort to knot the score at one all. After retrieving a puck from the Devils’ defense and skating back to his own blue line, the Danish forward beat Allen with a fast shot from inside the left circle.
The goal was described as I mean incredible by Jet defenseman Brenden Dillon. How else could you describe him? Throughout the year, we witness him doing such for us frequently. He possesses both elite-level speed and talent. So, what those guys are capable of is incredible.
At 9:00 of the second frame, Jack Hughes scored the first goal of the game by deflecting a Hischier shot past Brossoit, who had won both of his previous starts.
The Jets were punished for having too many men on the ice, and that was only nine seconds before the goal.
Although there was no scoring in the first period, in the first few minutes Brossoit stopped Hischier on a breakaway, and shortly after, Allen replied by stopping Ehlers from breaking in alone after he was set up by former Devil Tyler Toffoli, who was playing in his 800th NHL game.