Devils Battle Coyotes, Come Out With Eighth Win of Season

The Devils officially got off to their best start since 1993-94 tonight with a 4-3 victory over the hapless Arizona Coyotes, sending the Yotes to the worst start of a season since the 1995-96 San Jose Sharks and improving to 8-2-0. Arizona has not won a game to start this year, now standing at 0-10-1.

The Coyotes vastly and generally outplayed the Devils most of the night, but New Jersey was able to battle back from a few deficits to pull away a victory from a desperate Arizona club. This was their only set of back-to-back games this season where both games would be played at Prudential Center.

On the medical front, Brian Boyle has been skating with the team, so he is closer to returning from his battle with CML. In addition, while Cory Schneider was back in the nets after his wife gave birth yesterday, captain Andy Greene was missing from tonight’s lineup as his wife gave birth to a son earlier this morning. Congratulations to the Greene family on their new addition.

With Cory back in the Devils’ lineup, there was a glut of goaltending. Instead of sending Scott Wedgewood back down to Binghamton, the Devils decided they would cut ties with him so that he could successfully achieve becoming a number one goaltender in the NHL. His destination? Right down the hall from the Devils’ dressing room to Arizona. He was dealt early this afternoon to the Coyotes for a 2018 fifth round Draft pick. He would back up Louis Domingue for the Yotes tonight. Part of the early struggles for Arizona has been lack of consistent goaltending, so Wedgewood should get a chance to really shine there.

Some other roster notes for the Devils: Kyle Palmieri was still out with the lower body injury. He will be reevaluated before the Western Canadian road trip coming up to see if he can make the trip with the team. Marcus Johansson was injured during warmups and was a last minute scratch for the Devils as well. Dalton Prout and Mirco Mueller came back in on defense while Stefan Noesen, who was originally supposed to sit, slotted in for Johansson.

The story of the night, as far as New Jersey’s comebacks were concerned, was special teams. The Coyotes went only 1-for-5 on the power play as the Devils continued to be a heavily penalized team. The Devils’ power play was 2-for-2, connecting on both chances to complete a rally for New Jersey late. The Devils also had a bizzare shorthanded goal in this game that we will get to in a second.

The first goal of the game was the Arizona power play goal that was set up by Jesper Bratt going off for slashing. Christian Fischer potted one on that man advantage, with assists to Christian Dvorak and Jason Demers. The Coyotes were really pressuring early in the first and it paid off for them there. Arizona had the 1-0 lead, but the Yotes do tend to score first early, as they have done so eight times this year so far.

The Devils seemed to be setting a tone when, after that power play, Pavel Zacha was called for a slashing infraction. But, while killing that penalty, Brian Gibbons broke free for a breakaway on the Arizona net after intercepting a pass at the Devils’ blueline. He was hooked from behind by Oliver Ekman-Larsson and a penalty shot was awarded to Gibbons at 11:55 of the first period. Gibbons would make a move similar to Bratt’s shootout goal last night, cutting in and hesitating to freeze Domingue before sliding the puck under his goal stick. That shorthanded penalty shot, the first such converted by a Devil since Ilya Kovalchuk did it back in January of 2013. The Devils went back on the penalty kill and finished, keeping Arizona off of the scoreboard. That goal was also Gibbons’ team leading fifth goal of the season.

In the second period, Taylor Hall would score his first of two to give New Jersey the 2-1 lead. It came at 11:09 when Ben Lovejoy got the puck up the wall to Jesper Bratt. Bratt cut into the Arizona zone, dumping the puck to the far corner and then heading to a spot behind the net where he knew the Coyotes’ defender would try to wrap the puck around the boards. The puck came right to Bratt, who centered to Hall in the slot. He fired it home and the Devils had the lead. It was a nice play by Bratt, who showed good anticipation on the play, knowing exactly where to be on the ice to intercept the clearing attempt.

But the Coyotes would get the next two to take a 3-2 lead going into the second intermission. Arizona tied things up when Brendan Perlini scored his first of the year from Alex Goligoski and Mario Kempe at 11:57 of the second period. The Yotes had tied things up less than a minute after Hall’s goal gave New Jersey the lead and they would take the lead at the 15:13 mark when the NHL’s leading rookie scorer, Clayton Keller, potted his eighth goal unassisted. Going into the final frame, the Devils were down 3-2, which would set up a wild third period.

The Devils would finally get their first power play opportunity at the 4:19 mark of the third when Max Domi went off for interfering with Lovejoy. The Devils wasted no time. At 4:30, Adam Henrique won the faceoff in the Arizona end to Bratt, who skated along the half wall and relieved the puck to the near point. Bratt took the pass back and made a slick backhanded pass to Henrique near the near faceoff dot. He made a backhanded pass of his own to Hall, who was swooping in to the top of the far faceoff circle. Hall rifled one by Domingue, a right-catching goalie’s, glove hand to tie things up at three.

The game clincher came at the 15:47 mark of the third when Bratt and Hall would team up again. This goal was also on the power play, set up at 15:26 when Fischer was called for roughing Blake Coleman. On the man advantage, Bratt again set up on the near half wall, giving the puck to Henrique in the faceoff circle. He dished back to Will Butcher at the near point. Butcher gave to Hall, who found a perfect seam cross ice to Bratt. Bratt one-timed it by Domingue to give the Devils the last lead of the game.

New Jersey weathered a storm of almost three and a half minutes of Arizona pulling their goaltender for an extra attacker. But unlike last night against Ottawa, they shut the door, with one last strange play close to the end. While trying to clear the zone, Coleman pitchforked the puck up so high that it hit the new gigantic scoreboard. The faceoff was ruled to come in the Devils’ zone, but the Devils did hold on to win the game in a frantic finish and sending the Coyotes to their eleventh loss of this early season.

Cory Schneider had a great night to say the least, making 34 saves on 37 Coyotes shots. In five power plays, Arizona had eight shots. Domingue had 21 saves on 25 Devils shots. The Devils power play unit was perfect, scoring on both shots they took.

Individually for the Devils, Adam Henrique led the team with 19:41 of ice time. John Moore led a pretty balanced defense corps with 17:38 TOI. Taylor Hall led the team in shots on goal with four, scoring on two of them.

Next up, the Devils begin a Western Canadian road trip after a few days off, on Wednesday, November 1 when they travel to Vancouver to take on the Canucks.

Despite Gallant Comeback, Devils Drop Tenth Straight to Coyotes

The Devils dropped their tenth straight game and fell to last place in the Eastern Conference despite a dramatic comeback that they just could not finish. They fell 5-4 to the Arizona Coyotes.

The roster had a drastically different look tonight. For starters, Travis Zajac was back in New Jersey with his wife as they were celebrating the birth of their third child. With Zajac out, Taylor Hall and Kyle Palmieri would be playing with Adam Henrique centering their line.

Devante Smith-Pelly (lower body injury) was out of the lineup as well. In his and Zajac’s place, Blake Pietila and Kevin Rooney were recalled from Albany to replace them. Andy Greene was also back in on the blue line following his return to the team. Miles Wood went hard into the end boards at practice earlier today and was favoring his shoulder, but he would play. Ken Appleby was sent back to the A-Devils as Keith Kinkaid felt better and was able to back up Cory Schneider tonight.

Also scratched for New Jersey were Michael Cammalleri and Jacob Josefson as well as Dalton Prout. Sitting for Arizona were Alexander Burmistrov, Kevin Connauton and Teemu Pulkkinen.

These two teams last played all the way back on October 25 in New Jersey where the Devils came away with the victory and scored five goals. Since then, both teams have gone steadily downhill. However, for the Coyotes, one bright spot has been the rookies, who have scored a combined 80 points for the club. The Devils had won five straight games against the Coyotes coming into this game.

The matchup between the pipes saw Mike Smith make 26 saves for the Coyotes on 30 shots faced for a .867 save percentage. The Devils started Cory Schneider, who made six saves on 10 shots faced for a .600 save percentage. Keith Kinkaid would come on in relief for him at about the 15:47 mark of the second period and make 20 saves on 21 shots faced for a .952 save percentage.

The first period was ugly for the Devils, no doubt about it. It began just 1:27 into the period when Radim Vrbata scored from Max Domi and Connor Murphy. The Devils would immediately challenge this goal, saying that Domi had entered the Devils zone ahead of the Christian Dvorak and the puck, thus being offside. The linesmen looked at the replays and did not agree, ruling that Domi was, in fact on side and the goal was a good goal. It was 1-0 Coyotes.

Arizona scored again one minute and 26 seconds later when Tobias Rieder found the netting behind Cory from Jordan Martinook. It was now 2-0 Coyotes.

The third Arizona goal was set up by the whistle happy referees calling everything in sight. First, at 13:24 Domi was called for interference, giving New Jersey a 5-on-4 power play. Things were evened up at 15:24 when Joseph Blandisi went off for holding. At 16:24, Vrbata was sent off for cross checking, making it a 4-on-3 for the Devils. Then Taylor Hall was nabbed for slashing at 16:40 to make it a 3-on-3. As each of those penalties expired, it ended up with Arizona coming away with a 5-on-4 man advantage on which Jakob Chychrun scored from Rieder and Martinook. The Coyotes would end up 2-for-3 on the power play and the Devils were 1-for-2 on the night.

The Devils hit rock bottom at 3:59 of the second period when Brendan Perlini scored from Anthony DeAngelo and Chychrun again on the power play (Greene was in the box for holding). It was now 4-0 Coyotes.

The Devils were deep in a hole when, at 4:36 of the second, Mike Smith, one of the NHL’s best puck handling goaltenders was called for delay of game for playing the puck outside of the trapezoid. Then, at 5:47 of the period, Joseph Blandisi stole the puck from an Arizona defender and skated it to the far faceoff circle. He went cross ice to Hall, who connected on a pass to a cutting Kyle Palmieri. Palmieri was cutting in on net and scored, tumbling into the net along with the puck. The Devils had made it 4-1.

New Jersey would cut the lead in half at 12:09 of the second when Damon Severson kept the puck in the Arizona zone. He bobbled it and Beau Bennett picked it up in the slot, skated in on Smith, went to his backhand and scored to make it 4-2. With the Devils mounting a comeback, things began to get a little bit chippy as there was a lot of extra curricular activity after the whistles.

The third period opened with the Devils’ comeback continuing. Just 17 seconds into the third frame, Adam Henrique won an offensive zone faceoff back to Damon Severson at the far point. He fired and seemed to have beaten Smith cleanly to end his goal scoring drought that goes back to November 15. Replays showed that Palmieri actually tipped it in and he got the credit, giving him his second goal of the game to make it 4-3 Coyotes.

The Devils comeback would hit a snag when Sewell, New Jersey-native Anthony DeAngelo scored his fourth goal of the season from Jamie McGinn and Chychrun to put the Coyotes back up by two, 5-3.

But New Jersey made things interesting. First, at 15:02, the lead was cut back to one when Wood and Pavel Zacha cycled in the far corner. Zacha then went against the grain, finding John Moore behind the play. Moore took the pass, went to his back hand and beat Smith to make the score 5-4.

The Devils were within one and had their chance to tie it up when, with just 2:38 left in the game, Luke Schenn hauled down Hall and the ref awarded him a penalty shot. Smith would stop him and the game would continue 5-4. New Jersey pulled Kinkaid with about 50 seconds left in the third, but could get nothing going to tie it up and dropped their tenth straight and yet another one goal game.

But they did battle back and that showed that this team has not given up.

Next up, the Devils return home on Tuesday to the Prudential Center to take on the Winnipeg Jets. I will be attending this game live, so my post may be a little bit late. Hopefully, the Devils can get a win here as it would do a lot to boost the morale of this young team and their fans.