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Devils Score Two Power Play Goals, Defeat Bruins

In Sunday’s loss at Carolina, part of what got the Devils in trouble were penalties. The team made up for it with tonight’s 2-1 win over the Boston Bruins in which it was their opponents who gave the Devils opportunities with the man advantage. New Jersey got two power play goals, one from Travis Zajac and one from Reid Boucher to down Boston and keep them in the playoff race in the Eastern Conference, albeit by a thread.

Some more good news came on the Cory Schneider front. He skated with the team this morning and will travel with the Devils on the Florida road trip coming later this week. He will likely not play on Thursday against the Panthers (although that is still up in the air), but will almost definitely start against the Lightning on Saturday night.

Some other good news for the Devils involved an injury to a Bruins player. For the first time in the season series, Ryan Spooner would not be able to score the game winning goal against New Jersey. He was injured and did not make the trip to Newark.

One player that the Devils would be seeing was Lee Stempniak as the former Devil was making his return to The Rock as a member of the Bruins. Stempniak – who has played for six teams the last three seasons – was traded at the trade deadline despite being the Devils’ leading scorer.

The goaltending matchup saw Keith Kinkaid return to the crease. Kinkaid started his first game since March 19, after which Scott Wedgewood was called up and started the next four for New Jersey. Kinkaid was solid tonight, making 39 saves on 40 shots faced and being named the game’s first star by the media.

Opposing him would be Tuukka Rask, who got the nod for Boston despite Jonas Gustavsson having two wins over the Devils this season. He made 13 saves on just 15 Devils shots.

That’s right, the Bruins more than doubled up the Devils in the shots on goal department.

The Devils may not have had that many shots, but the ones they did they made count. And it started early. Kyle Palmieri began the game just moments in by making a nice one-on-one move to beat Zdeno Chara, although he was stopped by Rask when he got to the net.

But, as expected, the Bruins would constantly be answering. Kinkaid was tested early on on a breakaway by Matt Beleskey. That was the story of the first period, as Boston had a lot of odd man rushes. MSG’s John MacLean mentioned that all of those odd man situations were what helped Kinkaid get his confidence back, although he did have some help from the defensemen, particularly Andy Greene. Greene is almost always perfect with his positioning and it shows at those times.

Speaking of Andy Greene, congratulations to him for being named the Devils nominee for the Masterton Trophy. The trophy is awarded for perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. The nomination is made by the New Jersey chapter of the Professional Hockey Writer’s Association and it had to do with him being a guy who was undrafted in 2006 and, ten years later in 2016, being named the captain of the Devils. He is a good, solid player and someone the Devils can always rely on defensively or as a leader.

The Devils would get on the board first when the Bruins’ Patrice Bergeron took a high-sticking call against Reid Boucher, putting the Devils on the power play at 16:04. It would take the Devils about a minute with the man advantage to find the back of the net. David Warsofsky, at the point, moved the puck to Boucher at the near half wall. He quickly moved it to Travis Zajac in the slot who hammered home his 14th of the year to give the Devils a 1-0 lead. It was good puck movement that resulted in that goal at 16:59 and the Devils would go into the first intermission with the lead. Warsofsky’s assist was his first point as a Devil and his second of the year (he had a goal earlier while still with Pittsburgh).

The Bruins would tie things up early in the second when Brad Marchand would beat Kinkaid on a partial breakaway at 4:28. The assists went to Chara and former-Devil-turned-Bruin Lee Stempniak (who continued a tradition this season of scoring against his former teams).

The second period would also see a fight that wasn’t when Adam McQuaid and Seth Helgeson (who was back in the lineup for New Jersey) squared off, but the linesmen jumped in immediately, putting out that fire. Both men would receive unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and the teams would play four-on-four hockey for two minutes.

Early in the third period, Chara would be assessed a boarding penalty against Devante Smith-Pelly and the Devils would again go on the power play at 3:58. They wasted no time retaking the lead. At 4:05, Kyle Palmieri blasted a shot from the point. The rebound came out to Zajac, who passed to Boucher, who was stationed at the hashmarks on the near faceoff circle. He fired and beat Rask, making it 2-1 Devils.

New Jersey would weather a surge from the Bruins for the rest of the third period. Rask was pulled with about two minutes left by Boston coach Claude Julien, but when Brad Marchand took a slashing call against Adam Larsson at 18:49, it essentially put the icing on the Devils’ win. Boston did pull Rask again to even things up at five-on-five, but it was to no avail. Keith Kinkaid and the Devils had come away with the win and were back in the playoff hunt.

That is where things are kind of complicated, though. Carolina did lose in a shootout to the Islanders and at the end of the Devils game, Montreal was leading Detroit, but it will still take some time for things to sort themselves out in the Eastern Conference race. All the Devils can do on their end is keep winning games and let the chips fall where they may.

New Jersey will next travel to Florida as their tour of the Atlantic Division continues. First up: the Panthers in Sunrise. Jaromir Jagr and company look to be in the driver’s seat as they battle intra-state rivals the Tampa Bay Lightning for the Atlantic Division crown. They Devils will need to play an even better game than they did tonight in order to get a “W” in the Sunshine State.

On a final note, congratulations to the Albany Devils, who clinched a Calder Cup Playoff spot with a win the other night versus the Hartford Wolf Pack. With all of the call-ups that have robbed them of most of their roster, they have still been able to play at a high level, a real testament to the team and their coaching staff. Here’s to hoping that they go deep in the AHL’s postseason tournament.

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Devils Edged by Hurricanes in Easter Sunday Tilt

The Devils traveled to North Carolina with a chance to put more distance between themselves and the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference playoff race. And they almost battled back to do so, despite an undisciplined first period that saw the Canes take what would go on to be an insurmountable lead for the Devils. They ended up falling 3-2 to the Hurricanes at PNC Arena to fall back behind that same Carolina club in the race for a playoff spot.

Some good news first out of the Devils camp, as Cory Schneider has been placed on injured reserve retroactive to March 4. This was done so that he could practice this Monday with the Albany Devils of the AHL, since the Devils do not have a team practice scheduled between now and Tuesday’s game against the Boston Bruins. He will, however, probably not play in that game against the Bruins at Prudential Center. So, with Schneider on the comeback trail, the Devils got a little bit of good news.

Some other good news for the Devils of the statistical kind is that Adam Henrique (27) and Kyle Palmieri (29) went into this game on the verge of scoring 30 goals on the year. Since 30 goals has kind of replaced 50 as the standard for anyone not named Alex Ovechkin, this is good news too. The last time the Devils had a 30 goal scorer, they actually had three of them. It was the 2011-12 season when Ilya Kovalchuk, Zach Parise and David Clarkson each topped or equaled that number.

Of note in the Hurricanes’ lineup was center Patrick Brown, wearing number 36. He is a rookie and is the son of former Devil Doug Brown. Doug Brown played a big part in the Devils’ 1988 Cinderella run. Could some of that mojo rub off on the current Devils?

In net, Scott Wedgewood would finally seem human as he made 20 saves on 23 shots fired his direction by Carolina. He would suffer his first ever regulation loss in this game. Facing him this evening was Cam Ward, who made 23 saves on 25 shots for Carolina. With the Capitals’ overtime goal the other night, Wedgewood’s shutout streak was ended at just over 159 minutes, the longest for a Devils goaltender since Martin Brodeur in 1994.

The Devils would look to start things off on the right foot after Vojtech Mozik was called for interference and New Jersey went on the penalty kill. Adam Henrique picked off a pass in the Devils defensive zone and he and Travis Zajac were off on a 2-on-1. Ward made the save, but the team looked to be going okay.

Unfortunately, the Devils would beat a path to the penalty box and that would be their undoing in the first period.

It actually started with a Carolina penalty. Brad Malone cross-checked Tuomo Ruutu and was whistled for that, however in the ensuing scrum after the whistle, Malone and Bobby Farnham got into a scrap. The Devils would lose Farnham for five minutes, Carolina would lose Malone for five plus Jeff Skinner would be off for two, as he would serve the cross-checking penalty.

Eighteen seconds into the Devils’ power play, the Hurricanes got in on a 2-on-1 shorthanded and Travis Zajac was called for holding Jordan Staal on that play. Because of this, things would be evened up at four-on-four. The Hurricanes took advantage of the extra room to move when Ron Hainsey beat Wedgewood off assists from Staal and Jaccob Slavin and jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead at 9:10.

The Hurricanes would then go on the power play when Joseph Blandisi was nabbed for tripping Brett Pesce. Carolina now had a 4-on-3 man advantage and Victor Rask would connect, scoring his 19th of the year from Elias LIndholm and Justin Faulk. The power play goal came at 9:46 and made it 2-0 Carolina.

But the Devils were not done taking undisciplined penalties yet. Devante Smith-Pelly was called for tripping Slavin at 13:22 and decided to jaw at the referees, who added an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to his time in the box. New Jersey would now need to kill a four minute Hurricanes power play. They would (with the help of some big saves by Wedgewood) and would get out of the wild first period only down 2-0. After all those penalties called in the first period, only one more penalty would be called the rest of the night (a Carolina hooking call to Jay McClement).

Just 2:01 into the second, though, Rask would strike again, scoring his 20th from Skinner to make it 3-0 Carolina. The Hurricanes seemed to be in complete control at this point and the Devils were fully behind the eight-ball.

But things would get interesting starting at 6:27 of the second. The Hurricanes were unable to clear the puck when the Devils dumped in. Malone turned the puck over to Bobby Farnham in the slot and he beat Ward with a wrist shot to make it 3-1, Hurricanes. It was Farnham’s first goal since January and ended an 88-plus minute Devils goal drought, going back through the Washington game.

The Devils ratcheted up the pressure just 1:50 later when Palmieri went in strong on the forecheck and Ward turned over the puck. Palmieri passed to Blake Pietila with a wide open net in front of him. His shot trickled off a Carolina stick right to Zajac, who buried his 13th of the season to make it 3-2.

But once the momentum shifted to the Devils, Carolina coach Bill Peters did a smart thing: he quickly called his timeout. This killed the Devils’ comeback on the spot and, although they would pull Wedgewood in the waning minute or so of the third, the Devils were never able to score on a frantic finish.

The only other thing of note that happened late was midway through the third period when Sergey Kalinin fell awkwardly into the boards and seemed to be injured. He would, however, return.

So what is next for the Devils? Well, New Jersey played their final game against a Metropolitan Division foe with this game against the Canes. All of their games from here to the end are against Atlantic Division opponents, starting with the Boston Bruins Tuesday at The Rock, which will feature the return of Lee Stempniak to New Jersey.

The Bruins have been struggling of late, but are still in position to make the playoffs in the Atlantic. Will the Devils be able to pick up points against a playoff contender? Or will this loss to the Hurricanes have crippled their playoff chances beyond hope? We will find out on Tuesday.