The Devils rolled into Ottawa looking to sweep their season series with the Senators. Unfortunately for them, while they got off to a quick start, they got into some penalty trouble and even though they were able to make a bit of a comeback, but ended up losing 5-3.
This game was Taylor Hall’s 500th NHL game. Although he is only 26 years old, Hall has been in the league a long time as that stat shows. His family and friends were in attendance due to Ottawa being the closest NHL city to his hometown of Kingston, Ontario. Congratulations to Hall on that milestone.
The Devils again went with eleven forwards and seven defensemen, something that coach John Hynes said he would run with until it did not work. Jimmy Hayes and John Quenneville were the healthy scratches. Cory Schneider, still out with a groin injury, did not make the trip. Quenneville did make the trip but has yet to see action. In the postgame, Devils announcer Steve Cangialosi speculated that he might get in against Calgary on Thursday, seeing as Hynes may drop the eleven forwards/seven d-men roster alignment.
The Senators last spring were one goal from the Stanley Cup Final, but find themselves in second to last in the Eastern Conference at this point this year. Part of that is injuries. The team is missing five forwards alone due to injury, including Bobby Ryan – who is out for three-plus weeks with a hand injury. With that, they called up a forward from AHL Belleville, Max McCormick. He would play a key role in the game for the Sens later on.
The goaltending matchup saw Craig Anderson make the start for Ottawa. He made 30 saves as the Devils peppered him with 33 shots. Just like the other night against Pittsburgh, the Devils unleashed shot after shot, but did not play as complete a game as they did against the Pens.
The Devils started Keith Kinkaid in net, he made 16 saves on 20 shots. He was relieved in the second period, following the Sens’ fourth goal, by Eddie Lack. Lack stopped 11 of 12 shots faced. The Senators had a total of 32 shots. The veteran Lack had just been called up from AHL Binghamton when Ken Appleby was sent back down.
The Devils could have equaled their win total of all of last season with a win tonight and seemed to be right on target for that when Travis Zajac scored just 1:57 into the game. It happened when Blake Coleman circled in the Ottawa zone towards the far corner. He tried to center one to Stefan Noesen, but the Sens’ Dion Phaneuf tried to intercept. He could not and turned it over to Noesen, who flicked the puck up to Zajac. Zajac collected and skated in on Anderson and beat him to make it 1-0 Devils.
Then some strangeness in a very strange game. Ottawa was 4-for-30 coming into tonight’s game on the power play, making them the 28th ranked PP in the NHL. But at 11:55, Coleman was called for roughing, followed by Kyle Palmieri going off for high sticking at 13:02, giving the Senators a 5-on-3 power play. Mike Hoffman scored off of a one-timer from Matt Duchene on the first part of the power play to tie it up at one. Erik Karlsson had the secondary assist. That goal came at 13:35.
Then, on the 5-on-4 that resulted when Coleman exited the box after the Hoffman goal, Christopher DiDomenico scored from Cody Ceci and Ryan Dzingel at 14:33 to put Ottawa up for the first time all evening, 2-1.
Duchene would score himself at 18:58 by flipping one top shelf over Kinkaid’s glove to make it 3-1 just before the end of the first period. Hoffman and Fredrik Claesson had the assists.
Just like that, the Devils found themselves down by a pair of goals as they headed into the second period. And it was about to get worse.
At the 8:43 mark of the second, rookie Colin White (no relation to the former Devil) notched his first NHL goal when he scored from Thomas Chabot and Duchene. Less than halfway through the second period, Matt Duchene already had three points. He would go on to be named the game’s first star. It was after this goal that Lack came into the game.
Earlier in the second, at the 3:18 mark, McCormick and Ben Lovejoy had gotten into a scrap with Lovejoy taking the extra roughing call. It came when McCormick hit NIco Hischier with a borderline dirty hit. Lovejoy was coming towards McCormick and McCormick dropped his gloves preemptively. The officials assumed that Lovejoy was coming to the aid of Hischier and gave him the extra two minutes in addition to the fighting majors. The Sens did not score on the power play.
Things got even weirder later in the second at the 10:02 mark when Taylor Hall laid a clean hit on Alexandre Burrows. Burrows took exception and, as Hall put it in a postgame interview “kind of lost his mind.” He began by cross checking Hall down to the ice, then rabbit punching him while he was down and, for good measure, kneeing him in the head twice. He ended up with a double minor for cross checking and roughing. The feeling is that the NHL will look into the kneeing incident to see if further discipline is in order.
So the Devils were now on the power play for four minutes. And Hall wasted no time letting the Sens know what he thought. He scored at 10:54 to cut the Ottawa lead in half at 4-2. It came when Palmieri freed the puck up along the near boards to Pavel Zacha. Zacha found Hall at the top of the far faceoff circle and unleashed a bomb of a slap shot on net that beat Anderson.
Overall, on the power play, the Devils were 1-for-4 with nine shots while the Senators were 2-for-3 with four shots on goal. The Devils penalty killing unit did not have a good night, to say the least.
The Sens would get their three goal lead back when Zack Smith scored at 19:12 of the second from JG Pageau and Burrows to make it 5-2.
Palmieri would notch another point when he scored at the 5:12 mark of the third period to put the Devils within two. It developed when Miles Wood freed up the puck behind the Senators’ net, much like Palmieri did on the Hall goal, and Pavel Zacha went behind the back to feed Palmieri in the low slot. Palmieri fired and beat Anderson over the glove with the puck quickly going in and out of the net. It was 5-3 Senators and the Devils seemed to be on the comeback. On Saturday, Ottawa had given up a lead late to the Flyers (a game they won in a shootout), so they were vulnerable.
New Jersey pulled Lack with about two minutes remaining in the game, but to no avail. Time ran out and the Devils fell by that same score, 5-3.
In terms of stats, the eleven forwards/seven d-men setup allowed Hall to once again be double shifted, especially late in the game, and lead the team in ice time with 22:11. Palmieri led in shots on goal with five as he was named the game’s third star. Hits were a tie between Coleman and Sami Vatanen, with five each. Three defensemen, Andy Greene, Will Butcher and Damon Severson tied for the lead in blocks with two each. Wood and Severson both had a takeway to lead the team in that category. As a team, the Devils won 45-percent of the game’s faceoffs.
Next up, New Jersey will return home to take on the Calgary Flames on Thursday. I will be attending this game, so my post on it will be up a little bit late. We will find out then if the Devils can get back on the winning track as they hit a rough patch of their schedule.